


The One Where Dinesh Finds Out

by penoftruthiness



Category: Silicon Valley (TV)
Genre: Carla is also the best bro, Dinesh is clueless but that's ok, Jared is the best bro, Jared/Richard is background but still definitely there, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-10-11
Packaged: 2018-04-22 12:48:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 21,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4835978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penoftruthiness/pseuds/penoftruthiness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gilfoyle falls in love first, because of course he does. It takes Dinesh far too long to notice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is the longer Dinesh/Gilfoyle fic I wanted to write. I'm still in love with this pairing, obviously. 
> 
> This fic was partially inspired (especially the heavy use of flashbacks) by Falling Into You, by sabrecmc, who is an infinitely better writer than I could ever hope to be. If you care about Steve/Tony at all, you need to read that fic.

_The very first time he’d met Gilfoyle had been just like every other time he met someone. Awkward and uncomfortable._

_“So, you’ve heard about Aviato?”_

_This crazy-eyed, crazy-haired guy nodded enthusiastically in his direction. Dinesh briefly reconsidered living on the street. He was kind of concerned this guy could kill somebody. Probably him._

_“Uh…yeah. Great app.”_

_“Really? I mean - of course you have! It’s one of the most helpful apps out there. Did you use the added functionality with bathrooms?”_

_“Uh. Yes. Look, I’ve heard about your house…” Dinesh tried maneuvering the subject away from whatever creepy sex app involved the use of bathrooms. He did not want to know._

_The guy’s eyes lit up. What was his name…it sounded like something out of Skyrim. “Ah! The incubator! I should have known an enterprising guy like yourself would be familiar with my work giving back to the younger developers in this fine valley. Listen, tomorrow, swing by the house. You sound like you’ll be doing great things. You definitely have a taste for the better apps out there.”_

_With that, the guy shook Dinesh's hand enthusiastically and handed him a business card:_

_Erlich Bachmann_

_Creator of Aviato_

_Cultivator of Dreams_

_It also had an address and phone number on the back. Dinesh squinted his eyes in distaste as Erlich walked away. At least he would never need to call this guy. Hopefully._

_Still, that was the easiest invite he’d ever gotten to go over to anyone’s house. Much less one he might soon be living in. From that conversation, he probably shouldn’t be this excited, but if the rumors he heard from his cousin were true, living with him would be dirt cheap. Plus, he was quickly running out of options. He couldn't live with Wajeed, that's not something the 'cool cousin' could do and still maintain his reputation._

_The next day, at 9 AM, Dinesh rang the doorbell of a surprisingly normal looking house on a suburban street. There were kids playing a couple of houses down. An elderly neighbor was outside, rolling around his garden on top of a lawnmower. How could that weird, shouting egotist from yesterday live here?_

_Speaking of, Erlich opened the door, which banged loudly against the inside wall. Dinesh was briefly worried about the paint job before realizing that it had probably been fucked years ago._

_“What the fuck are you doing here?” Erlich glared at him, wearing nothing but a towel wrapped around the lower half of his body. Dinesh kept his eyes trained directly at Erlich's face._

_Dinesh blinked. “Um…you told me to come by today?” He hoped that Erlich hadn't forgotten. He'd told his previous roommate that he'd found a new place and no longer needed to sleep on the floor of the 'Goolybib mansion', so he needed this to work out. Today._

_“It’s not the daytime until noon at least. Come back in three hours. Goodnight.”_

_With that, the door slammed in Dinesh’s face. Alright then._

_He stood there looking at it for a few seconds, unsure of what to do. The door opened again, revealing a still glowering, but slightly more awake Erlich. He still didn't have a shirt on, though, which was uncomfortable._

_“Look, come in, sit on the couch." Erlich rubbed a hand over his face. "Give me a couple minutes to…drink some coffee.” He walked off down a hallway to the left, vaguely gesturing over his back towards the presumable direction of the couch._

_Dinesh carefully stepped inside and shut the door. He looked around, noting the large table covered with computer equipment (and the fact that the stuff was pretty nice and new. So people did actually work here). Then he noticed a man sitting in a chair nearby and staring at him. He was eating a bowl of cereal._

_“Um.” Dinesh willed himself to be assertive and friendly, but the guy’s stare was making him nervous. He hadn't broken eye contract once, and Dinesh was worried about how long this man had been staring at him before he'd noticed._

_Maybe this was the part where he got murdered._

_“If you’re hungry, the kitchen’s back there.” The guy nodded over his shoulder. Dinesh followed the direction with his eyes, then looked back at him._

_“Wait. Wouldn’t the coffee maker be in there?”_

_The guy raised an eyebrow. Was he confused? Was he waiting for him to continue? Dinesh cursed his lack of social skills._

_“Erlich said he was getting some coffee.” He decided to explain, realizing he didn’t want a potential housemate to think he was crazy before he even moved in. At least, if this guy even lived here. It wouldn't make sense for there to be some random person who didn't live in the house to be sitting there eating cereal at nine in the morning, but he wouldn't put it past Erlich. And this guy looked like he had broken into some houses in his life. “But he went back that way.”_

_“Yeah…he wasn’t getting coffee, dude.” The guy spun back around to look at his computer monitor. Dinesh thought that his monitor setup looked pretty cool, but he didn’t bother saying that out loud. Things that he thought were cool usually turned out to be incredibly uncool, and the unnamed man seemed like the judgmental type._

_“What was he getting then?” Dinesh shuffled his feet nervously._

_The guy let out a small laugh. “Dude, you're hilarious.” He didn't turn back around to look at him, though._

_Sensing that he wasn’t going to explain any further (and feeling a little annoyed at being brushed off), Dinesh set out to explore the rest of the house for a bit while Erlich got his not-coffee. The kitchen was indeed right where the rude guy said it would be, and Dinesh also finally found the couch that Erlich had probably been talking about earlier. He grabbed a can of cashews and decided to wait there._

_When Erlich found him a few minutes later, he looked a whole lot more awake. And less violent._

_“Ok, kid. Go.”_

_Dinesh stared at him in confusion. “What do you mean? I just got here…” This was the shortest and weirdest house interview ever._

_“No, no. Your pitch! Pitch me your app.” Erlich waved his hand in the air in a gesture that probably meant 'hurry the fuck up', but on him just looked like an invitation to fight. He grabbed the cashews and waited, staring at Dinesh._

_Oh. That was the “complication” his cousin had mentioned. Ok. Well, he hadn’t actually started working on it yet, instead focusing on finally losing his virginity (so far unsuccessful, but he had some strong leads), but he had one pretty cool idea…_

_The rude guy, as it turns out, was named Gilfoyle. On the tour of the house, Erlich introduced him with “That’s Gilfoyle. He’s an asshole.” Which, yeah, thanks, he figured that one out himself._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got the bare bones of this entire fic written out, so chapters will be posted as I finish editing them. I'm thinking about 7 or 8 chapters, but I might split some of them up.


	2. Wednesday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This takes place in some sort of alternate universe where Richard totally did get fired but then re-hired. Or something like that. Don't think about it too much. I have played Call of Duty like twice so anything written in this story about it is almost entirely made up. If I got something wrong I am sorry.

It all started the day that Jared was trying to figure out how to give performance reviews to people who were ignoring him. Some of his corporate culture training was so ingrained in him, it was like a compulsion. Even Richard wasn’t trying to help him out, and Gilfoyle and Dinesh had had a bet on when they were going to get married since Jared brought over the champagne bottle. Ridiculous romantic bullshit. They briefly debated putting it as “first time having sex”, but then they both agreed that marriage would probably happen way before that.

“Jared, working on this module is hard enough without you staring over my shoulder. Let me have some performance before you try to review it.” Gilfoyle practically growled without turning away from his monitor. 

“And when Gilfoyle is actually doing work, you know it’s serious.” Dinesh added. He didn't know quite how well Jared knew Gilfoyle now, but he did actually seem annoyed, and jumping down his back at this point could lead to stuff being thrown at people.

“I was actually calling them check-ins, and they’ve very quick and informal, I-”

Well, hopefully Gilfoyle would aim mostly for Jared.

“I wouldn’t have so much work to do if Dinesh hadn’t fucked up the sorting algorithm last week.” Well, that was unfair. He wasn't even the one bothering people with useless corporate nonsense.

“Oh really? Because I seem to remember that I fixed that completely within two hours, while you couldn’t find that one typo in your code for three. It’s a typo, Gilfoyle. You live your life on a computer, how do you make a typo?” He was being petty and he knew it, but that really was a small mistake, and he felt unfairly singled out.

“Same way your mom had you.”

Richard rolled his eyes. Apparently even his headphone-induced isolation wasn’t loud enough to keep them out. “Guys, can you please just let Jared…”

“We’re not just going to let your boyfriend do whatever he wants.” Gilfoyle said, interrupting Richard. Apparently he was pretty grumpy today. Messing with Jared was an everyday activity, but Richard was a much rarer target.

Richard frowned. “Fine. I’m going to go work in my room if you guys need me.” He picked up his laptop and made a swift exit down the hallway. The rest of Pied Piper was left to stare behind him.

“Um.” Jared was fidgeting. He was looking towards where Richard disappeared but seemed to be bolted to the floor.

“Did you want to go…” Dinesh tried to make it sound like a suggestion. Jared looked like he was about to combust.

“Yes. I should see if Richard is ok.” Jared nodded to himself before he left, jogging down the hallway like some sort of awkward, two-legged giraffe. Why was he running indoors? It's not like the hallway was that long. Richard probably wasn't dying.

Dinesh turned his head to make a comment to Gilfoyle, who was still staring at his computer. He certainly didn’t want to invite any more insults aimed at him at the moment, so he turned back around to focus on his work.

 

Unfortunately, whatever was making Gilfoyle an even bigger ass than usual seemed to be hanging around the house most of the afternoon. Dinesh finished the assignment he’d given himself, moved the Post-It note over to the completed column, and went into the kitchen to get a snack. And to spy on Gilfoyle.

He hadn’t moved for several hours. Actually, when was the last time that he had stood up? Gilfoyle wasn’t a really active guy (actually, neither were any of the rest of them), but usually he stood up to pace or eat or smoke or _something_ every hour or so. He didn’t just sit there like a coding robot. It was creepy.

Dinesh looked over at the living room. Video games weren’t a bad distraction, were they? Plus, he really wanted to shoot Gilfoyle in the face for that comment about his code earlier. Erlich and Jian Yang were out bothering some women on bikes the last time he saw them, so the TVs would be free for a while.

“Hey, Gilfoyle.” Dinesh said, sticking his head in the room.

Gilfoyle grunted in response.

Dinesh hesitated. “Would you want to play some Call of Duty or something? We can do no grenades if you want.” For whatever reason, Dinesh was incredibly good at throwing grenades at Gilfoyle, a tactic he liked to abuse mercilessly. The dude could outshoot him any day, but he hadn't yet mastered throwing grenades back, so Dinesh could actually win if he used grenades and spent the rest of the time fleeing.

“I’m good. I’m going to work on this a while longer.” Once again, Gilfoyle didn’t even turn his head to look at him. His voice was flat, uninterested. Dinesh shrugged, feeling ignored.

He went back to the living room and grabbed a controller. He could play online, but shooting some random person didn’t give nearly the same satisfaction as virtually fighting Gilfoyle.

 

_Gilfoyle had just shot Dinesh. Again. He got fucking angry when Dinesh abused grenades, and he was currently taking out his revenge by camping._

_"You know this tactic is just as cheap, right?"_

_Dinesh couldn't see Gilfoyle, since they were sitting back to back, but he imagined him smiling. "I'm only using this tactic for revenge."_

_There was the sound of more gunfire, so Dinesh ran away from where he'd regenerated._

_Dinesh hummed. "Sure, you've never used this online." He said sarcastically._

_"I usually don't play online. The people on there are even more dickish than you."_

_After another few seconds, the game ended, and Dinesh clicked through the screens showing that Gilfoyle won quickly, not bothering to even check how badly he'd lost, then put down his controller._

_"Ok, I know you were raised in the middle of the Canadian wilderness by wolves, but I'm still surprised you haven't ever played online. You could probably beat some of those dicks." Dinesh liked playing online when he needed to boost his ego, which was often left in shambles after he played Gilfoyle._

_Gilfoyle had put his controller aside as well, but hadn't turned around yet. Dinesh turned his head around and saw the guy had the score screen open and was staring at it. That dick. "I hadn't really thought about it."_

_Dinesh nodded, even though Gilfoyle couldn't see him, and stood up. "Well, if you decide to try it, let me know. It's got to be more entertaining than the reality shows you make me watch." He stretched his arms behind his head, turning around to face Gilfoyle, who was now sitting sideways on the couch so he could see Dinesh._

_"Please. You love The Amazing Race."_

_Dinesh shot him an incredulous look. "I don't even know which one that is."_

_Gilfoyle seemed to be considering something before he said, "Hey, so there's a video game convention in town next weekend if you want to go. I might be able to play someone there."_

_Dinesh raised an eyebrow, shaking his head. "Those people can be fucking serious though. Way better than the twelve year olds online. Plus, if they lose, there's a chance they might beat you up. I think I'll pass. But hey, let me know if anyone gets that on camera." That would be good blackmail material for ages._

_Gilfoyle laughed, but with a little less enthusiasm than normal. Maybe he was getting sick or something. Of course the asshole would still win at video games, even if he wasn't feeling well. "I think even I could take on an angry nerd from a video game convention."_

_That preposterous thought, of course, made Dinesh laugh loudly, and set off a two hour argument over whether or not Gilfoyle could actually come out of a physical fight alive. Either way, Dinesh wanted to see him try._

Several hours later, when Dinesh had gotten enough of fucking snipers, he decided to go mess around online before he fell asleep. When he passed the work table, Gilfoyle was still there, typing away. It was 11 o'clock at night. The lazy Canadian would never work past five willingly, much less this late. And there wasn't even anything urgent that they were working on.

After he turned the lights off and climbed in bed, staring at the ceiling, Dinesh thought about several things. There was the function of Pied Piper he wanted to focus on tomorrow and his cousin’s new app idea, a blatant rip off of himself called “Sis”. This time, at least, he hadn't pledged money to it, so he was unconcerned at its inevitable failure.

But there was one other thought that stayed with him right until he finally fell asleep – what the hell was wrong with Gilfoyle?

##  Jared Interlude Pt. 1

Jared paced in front of Richard’s door for a full two minutes. He knew because he was counting in his head. He pulled down on his sleeves every time he spun around. Was he getting more frantic? He felt frantic.

“Richard?” He called out hesitantly. No answer. Ok, well that wasn't a surprise. Richard wasn’t really one for raising his voice, and he’d have to if he was lying in bed and wanted to be heard outside the door. It was time to step it up a notch.

Jared knocked on the door. “Richard? Can I please come in?”

He heard a quiet groan from inside. Well, what was he supposed to do with that?

Jared hesitated for another few seconds before deciding that, if Richard really didn’t want anyone to bother him, he would have locked the door. He tried it.

“Richard?” Jared said quietly, peeking his head around the door. “I don’t want to intrude. I just wanted to make sure you were okay. You ran off pretty suddenly.”

And Richard certainly seemed okay. Physically, at least. He was lying on the top of his lofted bed with his arm hanging off the side. He was staring at Jared, blinking rapidly.

Jared tapped his fingers on the door, suddenly remembering himself. “I don’t want to bother you. I can leave.”

“No, Jared. It’s…it’s fine. You can come in.”

Jared breathed out a small sigh of relief. He felt like an asshole for the amount he'd intruded already, especially since Richard was only here to avoid all of them.

Richard sat up and rubbed his eyes. “I’m sorry I’m not working. I know we have a whole lot to do before we even get a working prototype. And we haven’t even thought about UI optimization yet…”

Sensing a panic attack incoming, Jared tried to head it off. “Hey, Richard, it’s ok. We’re actually on track. Our burndown chart looks really, really good.” Jared nodded, hoping it was convincing.

Jared watched Richard staring off into space, seemingly forgetting anyone else was in the room with him.

“Hey Richard, Gilfoyle is…well, I try not to let things people say bother me. Because, hey, much easier to ignore words than fists, right?”

Jared tried to pretend he wasn’t a little bit hurt that the idea of him as a boyfriend was insulting enough to cause a miniature breakdown. He looked down at his sweater, noting the wrinkles out of habit. These things didn’t matter at Pied Piper (Erlich didn't even have a shirt some days), but Hooli really valued a professional appearance in most of its higher ups (especially in business functions. Software guys could dress however they wanted, but HR people had to make an Impression). Jared had spent a lot of time every morning fixing his clothes and trying to look perfect, but never felt comfortable in business clothes. They always felt slightly alien on him. So he always knew that he would never be anyone's first choice in dating, but he thought that he could be a very warm and supporting partner if given the opportunity. It would be nice if Richard was a little less disgusted.

“I’m not upset about Gilfoyle, Jared. I live with him, I mean…” Richard trailed off again. Jared nodded at him, trying to show that Richard had his attention. “I’m just worried. About the future. Of Pied Piper, I mean.”

Jared blinked. “What do you mean?”

“I mean…well, what if we do really well? And then I turn into some kind of Russ Hanneman-monster. And Gilfoyle starts converting people to Satanism through our app, and Dinesh suddenly gets laid all the time, and you…” Richard trailed off, whatever future he was imagining for Jared terrifying him into silence.

“…well, Richard. I don’t think any of that is very likely to happen.”

“Yeah, especially if we never finish because I’m an idiot.” Richard rolled over on his bed, facing away from Jared.

Jared let the silence hang for a few moments, unsure of what to do. He was about to turn around and leave when Richard started talking again.

“Did you want to do your performance review thing with me?”

Jared tilted his head to the side, considering. Now was probably as good a time as any. They were fairly isolated from the rest of the team, and it wasn’t like there was a neutral setting in this house anyway. He nodded, and then, realizing that Richard couldn’t hear him, said “Ok. But technically, they're check-ins."

Richard rolled back over to look at Jared inquisitively. “So, is this like Hooli? You give me a ranking on a scale and tell me how many people are above and below me in all the categories?”

“What? No. I don’t…I don’t think that kind of competition would be good for this environment.” It wasn’t necessarily great for Hooli, either. They certainly weren’t identifying the company’s greatest talent if Richard had been stuck down in quality assurance. “I just…let’s talk about your goals.”

Richard squinted in confusion. “I mean…get Pied Piper off the ground? Don’t starve. Don’t move back to Tulsa. Um…” He tapped his chin, unable to think of anything else.

Jared pulled the chair back from Richard’s desk to sit on. “What about your goals personally? Outside of the company?”

Richard met Jared’s eyes for a second, then looked down. He started kneading his blanket between his fingers. “I guess…I guess I’m trying to be a better CEO? I don’t want to get fired again. I mean.” He hung his head slightly.

Jared hated seeing Richard like this. “Look, Richard, you’re the best.” Seeing Richard’s unbelieving eye roll, he decided to continue down this path. His CEO clearly needed some encouragement, and that's where Jared excelled. “You’ve inspired me…all of us, really, to work on this great, amazing idea with you. We’re here for your dream alone. That's a mark of a great leader."

“Jared, I…we really appreciate you here. I’m so glad you showed up that day. I have no idea what we would do without you.”

Richard was smiling at him, which was the best performance review Jared could ever get. 


	3. Thursday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Short update with Dinesh doing some snooping. Sadie the hamster was inspired by d2fmeasurement's headcanon on tumblr and my very own people-hating hamster (her name has been changed in case the government ever comes looking for her).

The next day, Dinesh woke up after a dream where a tall brunette kind of, sort of, almost looked at him. It was embarrassing how disappointed he was realizing that it was a dream, because, really, was that going anywhere?

He rubbed his hand over his face. Dream him wasn't even getting any. There was no hope.

When he got out to the kitchen, he nodded to Richard while grabbing his standard snack bar.

"Do you think anyone in this house actually knows how to cook?" He mused while he sat down at the table.

Richard tilted his head to the side, thinking. "I think Jared can, actually. He's talked about trying out a few new recipes before. And I know he can make really good brownies."

"How do you know that?"

Richard sputtered. "I, uh...we. We made brownies together."

Dinesh stared at him. "When did you do this? I know you had to do it here. Jared hasn't had a kitchen since whenever he stopped having his own apartment. So why didn't you give us some?"

Richard didn't stop sputtering. If anything, it picked up. "It was a couple weeks ago, when you were out visiting your cousin and Gilfoyle was at a satanist burning ritual or something. And well, I kind of...I burned them."

Dinesh raised an eyebrow.

Richard glared at him. "Look, it wasn't Jared's fault, ok? I thought I was supposed to put the heat on 450, but it was actually 350, and I checked the time on the box like 6 or 7 times, right, because I always mess up the time and that's how this stuff usually happens, but no. I put it on the exact right time, and I even checked it a minute before it was supposed to be done, but it was too late. Jared always makes them so well, too..."

Seeing Gilfoyle walk in the room, Dinesh smiled and decided to go for the kill. "So, is he baking the cake for the wedding?"

Richard chuckled at that. But Gilfoyle, without even looking at him, picked up a banana, turned around, and left.

Dinesh turned to look at Richard. "Ok, what was that?"

Richard looked confused. "Um...you were making fun of me?"

"No, with Gilfoyle." Obviously. He was almost always making fun of Richard.

"Oh. I suppose he usually goes with apples, but I didn't think it was worthy of comment."

"No, I mean...he's been weird lately, right? Like angrier than usual?" Dinesh pressed. He couldn't be the only one who had noticed.

Richard considered this. "I don't know. He's usually just mean to me, or especially Jared, so I kind of write it off. But I guess you're right? He doesn't usually ignore you, at least." Richard frowned at him. "Are you fighting?"

"What? No. I mean, we're always fighting. But nothing special." Dinesh tried to remember the last thing they'd talked about, but came up blank.

"Well...I guess he'll figure it out sooner or later. I mean, I hope he does? I've got to go, I'll see you later."

Richard made his way out of the kitchen while Dinesh sat back to think. Something was bothering his friend (even as he was thinking about it, that word gave him pause. Were Gilfoyle and him really friends? They spent a lot of time with each other, but usually friends do that willingly). There were at least two ways to go about this. The first was to directly ask him. That was obviously out. Dinesh didn't feel like getting murdered today. That left only one.

 

Gilfoyle's room was almost exactly what he expected. Dark, forboding, and a little bit disgusting. He had posters for weird bands and movies that Dinesh had never heard of all over the walls, and the pictures on them had a large amount of black, making the room look way darker than it actually was. The floor was littered with books and DVDs. Dinesh took a quick look in the trash and immediately wished he hadn't. _Was that a used condom?_ He really, really did not want to know.

Richard and Jared had left just after breakfast. Jared had been saying something about birds as they were walking out of the door, but Dinesh could not be bothered to pay attention to that nonsense. Maybe one of them was going to fall off a ladder. That would be a cool day. Gilfoyle was nowhere in the house based on his quick inspection, and Erlich would probably only encourage Dinesh if he found him sneaking around Gilfoyle's room. So he felt he had earned a bit of snooping based on his due diligence.

He paused to take in the room as a whole, looking for anything out of the ordinary. He stepped over a couple of empty chip bags to go furter in. On the bookshelf, tucked between _The Satanic Bible_ and _Firefly: The Official Companion_ , was _Teach Yourself Urdu_.

Well, that was confusing. Dinesh spoke perfectly good English. No one had made fun of his accent since about halfway through university (in one of his classes he'd just stopped talking). Why would Gilfoyle be learning Urdu, of all things?

 

_"That's not the language I speak." Dinesh couldn't believe he had to explain this, again, to some asshole white guy who didn't give a shit about him. Fuck this. He tried not to let his eyes tear up._

_"Maybe you should stop talking. In every language."_

_And just like that, Dinesh stopped being sad and started being angry. It was just fucking Gilfoyle, of course he was just fucking with him._

_"You could get 'This Side Up' in Urdu if you wanted. I could write it down for you. Totally wouldn't be the words for 'serial rapist'."_

_Gilfoyle smirked at him. "Hey, how long did it take you to learn English?"_

_Dinesh rolled his eyes. "I already spoke it. Almost everyone I knew in Pakistan spoke it."_

_"Oh. I was hoping I could beat your record if I learned Urdu. I'm pretty sure I could."_

_Dinesh laughed at that. "Why in the world would you want to speak Urdu? Nobody in Palo Alto except me and my cousins speak it."_

_Gilfoyle didn't answer, sitting back down at his desk. Maybe he was working on his stupid app again._

_"Besides, if you're going for second languages, you should go for German." Dinesh added._

_"Why's that?" Gilfoyle took the bait._

_"When you start murdering people, nobody will be surprised."_

Dinesh looked around again, shaking off the conversation that, for whatever reason, he remembered very clearly. He spotted Sadie's cage. Sadie was Gilfoyle's pet dwarf hamster. She was an absolute demon. She hated absolutely everyone (and only really tolerated Gilfoyle), and had bit Dinesh's finger the first time he'd met her. He had suspicions that Gilfoyle liked her more because she was a misanthropic hamster. It fit well with his personality.

He turned his head to look at Gilfoyle's bed, which was (predictably) not made. It actually looked surpsingly normal. He expected some animal sacrifice stains or something. This was actually pretty disappointing.

But sitting on the sheets was Gilfoyle's laptop. He knew the guy used pretty hardcore security. That was his speciality and all. But security means nothing if someone saw you type your password in two days ago while he was trying to hit your monitor with rubber bands.

Dinesh looked at Gilfoyle's desktop. The background was some band he didn't recognize. Interestingly, only his Java IDE and Skype were open. The IDE just contained some fairly generic-looking code related to Pied Piper, so Dinesh opened the Skype window.

The last conversation Gilfoyle had open was with some girl named Melanie. There were only two messages, both from her. One was from last year and was asking about Gilfoyle's dick. Gross.

The other one, however, was from yesterday. It was a fairly normal message:

_Hey! I see you're online. Can you chat?_

They had then video chatted for a little over an hour. Clicking through the other conversations, none looked more recent than the week before.

This Melanie girl wasn't necessarily the problem, but she was the best clue Dinesh had so far. He minimized the window, put the laptop back in (hopefully) the same place on the bed, and quickly left the room. Gilfoyle's weird vibe kind of felt like it was infecting him in there.

 

Gilfoyle walked back in the door an hour or so after Dinesh had finally settled down to work. He again didn't acknowledge that Dinesh was sitting there at all.

This was honestly pissing him off. He knew that they spent most of their time arguing, and Dinesh guessed they didn't really like each other. But ignoring him was fucking rude and petty. He made a somewhat rash decision.

"So, you remember that girl Melanie from a couple months ago?" He tried to keep his voice light and casual. Gilfoyle had brought several girls over since Dinesh had moved in. He had no recollection of any of their names, except for Tara.

Gilfoyle levelled him with an entirely unimpressed look. "I haven't seen Melanie in person since a year ago. Why were you on my laptop?"

Dinesh startled at that. "I wasn't!"

"Look, there's no reason for you to lie to me. There's literally no other reason you'd be asking about her. I don't talk about my exes, and I know for sure you don't bother remembering their names. Why were you on my computer?"

Dinesh put on a hopefully-convincing grin. "I wanted to see how your porn collection was going."

Gilfoyle rolled his eyes. "Please. You of all people should know - that shit is entirely in the cloud." He turned back to his computer.

Dinesh focused back on his screen. It wasn't like he could admit to Gilfoyle that he was in his room because the guy had been acting fucking strange lately. They didn't have the kind of relationship where they could worry about each other's emotional state. Dinesh would blatantly break Jared's workplace harrassment rules to call that shit as gay as it was.

Besides, they were back to relative normal, it seemed. So he decided to forget all about Melanie.

 


	4. Friday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jared plays a video game in this chapter you guys

Unfortunately, Gilfoyle was not quite back to normal. The guy kept disappearing right after work was finished, and never hung out with Dinesh outside of when they were both coding. He was kind of missing having somebody else to play video games with. He'd been playing online more and more recently, which was fun, but nothing compared to being able to hit Gilfoyle's controller out of his hands right before a headshot.

 

_A week or so after Dinesh had moved into the Incubator, he walked in Gilfoyle playing some indie game on the PS3._

_"Single player? Seriously?" He raised an eyebrow as Gilfoyle turned to look at him._

_Gilfoyle paused his game, presumably to argue better. "This one's fighting giant colossi. You climb up giant moving mountains and stab them in the face. It's actually pretty sweet."_

_"All I hear is that you suck at video games and don't like being humiliated by other people."_

_Gilfoyle didn't react except to continue leveling a stare at him.  "Fine. If you can find the other controller, we can play whatever you want. But I warn you - I am amazing at shooters."_

_Dinesh laughed. "Sure you are. And I know exactly where the controller is. Erlich hid it under the pillows of the other couch because it's gold or something. I saw him take it out two days ago. Not to play or anything, just to stare at it."_

_Gilfoyle chuckled at that, and Dinesh was glad to be out from under the unwavering gaze. "Cool. So what do you want to play?"_

_Dinesh picked up the controller and thought for a moment. "Call of Duty. I know you're fucking lying about shooters."_

_Gilfoyle turned around to look at him. "What makes you say that?"_

_"Have you seen yourself? Stoners are never good at Call of Duty. Way too bro for all of you."_

_Gilfoyle smirked. "One condition. You put your screen on the other TV. I don't fuck with screen watchers."_

_"Heh. You're on."_

_It turned out Gilfoyle was_ really _good at Call of Duty. Dinesh got crushed in three separate games. The guy could disappear and snipe you in a second. It was awful. He immediately decided he was going to make it his goal in life (outside of his goal to create a successful app and earn millions of dollars, obviously) to win against Gilfoyle._

_After another hour, Gilfoyle suddenly spoke up (outside of just throwing insults): "I could show you how to play_ Shadow of the Colossus _, too."_

_Dinesh shook his head quickly, switching to a shotgun. "Can I shoot you in the face in that one? I really only want to shoot you in the face."_

_Gilfoyle responded in a mocking tone, "You'd have to be able to hit me first."_

 

Turns out, the only way Dinesh could beat Gilfoyle with any regularity was when he cheated and messed with Gilfoyle's controller. Which was cheap, but super gratifying. Using grenades was a good way to annoy him, but the guy still won.

Dinesh was just finishing stabbing a guy who had particularly pissed him off earlier in the game when Jared walked by. Jared was good with feelings right? He practically kept Richard floating emotionally.

"Hey Jared!"

Jared startled and nearly tripped over his own feet. The guy looked with wide eyes at Dinesh. "What's wrong? Is there some disaster? Is something on fire?"

Dinesh felt Jared's panic rise up in himself, it was so blatant. "No. No, Jared calm down, nothing's wrong with Pied Piper. I just wanted to know if you'd talked to Gilfoyle recently."

Jared considered this. "Well, he called me a 'sickly albino giraffe’ earlier when we passed in the hall, but I didn't respond. Responding to insults can incite violence, so I tend to avoid engaging. I guess since I didn't say anything to him, it doesn't really count as talking to him. So...the last time we had a proper conversation was several days ago, when I was trying to promote internal reviews. Which I still think is something we should pursue, by the way. My talk with Richard was very enlightening, and his perspective on the company and his role has really focused since. I think that a similar experience would be helpful for you as well..."

"Jared, we don't care. We're not going to do your review nonsense." He realized he was still speaking on behalf of both him and Gilfoyle, even though the other guy wasn't even here. "I was just wondering if you thought he was acting strangely lately."

Jared did his stupid little eye movement he always did when he was thinking, looking off to one side with a ridiculously concerned expression. The guy was just so painful to watch sometimes. "Well, all he's done lately is insult me. Which is identical to our usual relationship, so I can't say that is out of the ordinary. I guess it is odd that he isn't playing games with you. I only see Gilfoyle playing by himself occasionally. You almost never do."

Dinesh blinked in confusion. "Wait, what does he play when he's alone?"

"I'm not sure. They usually look pretty. Not nearly as violent as when you play together. The one time I inquired about it, however, he told me to 'eff off', so I'm not sure of the specifics. I apologize."

The guy actually seemed really sorry to not be able to answer Dinesh's question. He felt a little bad.

"Hey Jared? Are you busy? Do you want to play?" Dinesh hesitantly offered the controller to him, figuring it would make them even. It couldn't be any worse than playing online.

 

Dinesh was wrong. He was so wrong. Jared was _terrible_ at video games. After he'd shot the guy 50 times in one game, he banished him back out of the living room. At least playing online was somewhat of a challenge. Playing against Jared felt like kicking a three-legged dog.

 

##  Jared Interlude Pt. 2

Jared had been thinking about his conversation with Dinesh for most of the night. Not the video games; that was a memory he quickly repressed, but the part about Gilfoyle. Their Canadian co-worker was always acerbic, but not to the point where Dinesh was...worried? Did Dinesh ever worry? Jared had always assumed he handled the worrying part of Pied Piper. Richard worried some, but that usually just led to vomit and no real results. Jared had been making it a goal of his recently to steer Richard away from stomach-upheaval levels of concern. He could handle being the one who cared. That's who he always was.

Which was why he was standing outside of Gilfoyle's door right now. He had never even considered going to this part of the house before. He had filed Gilfoyle under his mental list of people to be avoided unless there was a pertinent need. He didn't think it was likely for Gilfoyle to become violent, except sometimes he would start throwing things at Dinesh when their insult exchanges riled up.

Jared would never understand that type of relationship.

None of this was making it any easier to knock on the door. There were distant sounds of heavy metal playing through the door, so he knew Gilfoyle was in there. He had been in there since finishing work that day, except for the five minutes or so Jared had seen him sneak out to the kitchen.

Jared tried to rationalize this from a people management perspective. Gilfoyle was performing to his usual standards on productive work for Pied Piper, but his co-worker relationships had suffered a clear loss from whatever unknown event sparked this. That was important enough that Jared needed to intervene sooner rather than later.

He knocked four times in quick succession. "Um, Gilfoyle?" Jared decided it would be better to make his identity known before the door was open, as to not cause any negative surprised reaction. "It's Jared."

The door swung open far sooner than he was prepared for. Gilfoyle stood, staring at him. "I wasn't planning on opening the door, but I'm intrigued that you would risk coming all the way to my room. What do you want?"

Jared quickly tried to put together words in his head. "I wanted to see if you were ok."

Gilfoyle's stare didn't actually change, but somehow became more judgmental.

"Dinesh was worried."

Gilfoyle laughed at that. "Sure he is. So what has you," he chuckled again, "both, so worried?"

"Um...Dinesh is playing Call of Duty in the living room. It turns out I am very bad at it. I've never seen him playing alone before. It seemed odd."

Gilfoyle raised an eyebrow. "You played Call of Duty?"

"I was shot 47 times."

"What, in one game?"

"No, we played two games. In the first one, Dinesh only shot me twice, because he couldn't stop laughing."

Gilfoyle smirked. "What were you doing?"

"Mostly shooting the walls. Aiming is difficult."

"You're not really a video games guy, are you?"

"Actually, I very much enjoy real time strategy. I'm just not very good at action games, I guess." Jared shrugged. He'd found his talents a long time ago, and wasn't bothered too much by not being good at things. The fact that him losing against Dinesh made Dinesh feel better gave him enough satisfaction to play as many games as Dinesh wanted. He noticed Gilfoyle's laptop screen flickering. "Are you doing anything interesting?"

Gilfoyle shrugged. "Just skyping with an old girlfriend."

"Melanie?" Jared asked. "Dinesh mentioned the name somewhere in the rant he had while playing. Does he always chatter that much?"

"Yeah. The dude talks constantly whenever he plays video games. I think it helps him not get nervous. So did you just want to check on me?"

Jared nodded, feeling more appeased than earlier. Gilfoyle seemed fairly normal, even a little friendlier than usual. "Well, both Dinesh and I were concerned about your wellbeing."

Gilfoyle nodded. "Well, stop worrying. You were pacing outside my door for five minutes before you knocked. You were muttering to yourself too, I could hear it."

"Oh. So you would rate your emotional state as stable at the moment?"

Gilfoyle rolled his eyes. "Just because Dinesh and I aren't hanging out as much doesn't mean that I won't be a good employee. Go watch a documentary or something." He slammed the door in Jared's face, but not with a whole lot of force.

"That wasn't...what I was concerned about. Actually." Jared mumbled to the closed door. One of the strongest teams in the company (after Jared had figured out how to use their weird relationship to the advantage of productivity) seemed to be having some sort of issue. Jared was concerned for the potential effects on the company, sure. But mostly he was worried about his friends.

This issue required more examination.

It was only five minutes later that Jared realized Gilfoyle hadn't directly insulted him once during that conversation. Something was definitely wrong.

 

Dinesh needed some answers, and he knew he wasn't going to get them from Gilfoyle. He had, however, stolen Gilfoyle's phone earlier when he'd gone to the bathroom, and grabbed Melanie's number off it. He announced to the house that he was going to go for a walk. The fact that that didn't raise any suspicions or bewildered questioning of why he was exercising was enough to tell him that everyone else was busy spying on Erlich, who was yelling at some girl in yoga pants in the backyard. Dinesh had made a quick guess that Erlich had made some lewd comment at the gym, but why the girl would follow him home was beyond him.

He walked three blocks over before he found a bench to sit on in a nearby park, with people far enough away that they wouldn't be able to hear (and didn't set off Dinesh's anxiety at having people too close to him). He picked a bench in the shade and unlocked his phone.

The screen stared back with Melanie's number. Dinesh's finger hovered over the 'Call' button. Was this really the right thing to do? Gilfoyle would probably be furious if he found out that Dinesh had not only spied on his Skype history, but also swiped the number of an old (and possibly also new) girlfriend off his phone. Dinesh thought about it for a moment, then shrugged, figuring that Gilfoyle would probably do the same to him.

The phone rang three times before someone picked up. Dinesh had met Melanie briefly a year ago, but he didn't recognize her voice.

"Hi, um..." He had never been good at phone conversations, even when it wasn't under suspicious circumstances. "Is Melanie there?"

"Yeah, this is Melanie. Are you trying to sell me something? Because I can just save you some time and tell you I'm not interested." Her voice sounded chipper, excited to be talking on the phone, which was definitely not how people usually talked to potential telemarketers.

"Er, no. This is Dinesh." He paused for a second, waiting for a response. Then he realized that she probably had no idea who he was. "I'm a friend of Gilfoyle's."

"Ooh!" She practically squealed. "Did he say anything about me?"

Dinesh was shocked enough to stumble over more of his words than usual. "No. Sorry, I just saw that you skyped with him a couple days ago, and I wanted to know what you talked about. He's been acting odd lately." He added on the last bit for clarification, since most people would probably need a reason to give out such private details to a total stranger.

Melanie, apparently, was not most people. "We talked about us, of course!" She made the words sound bouncy, almost sing-song. "I think we're like Romeo and Juliet or something. When I called the other day and told him I missed him, we talked about old times and everything, and suddenly everything came together! He kept saying he had some other hangup, but I know that will fade with time."

"Wait, what?" Dinesh's head was spinning. He had only met Melanie really briefly last year, but she was definitely not this happy.

"I know, I know." Melanie kept barreling through, seemingly unfazed by Dinesh's growing confusion. "It's a problem, but after our talk, I think he understands that pining after someone who will never want him back is just a waste of time when I'm right here, happily waiting for him."

Dinesh sighed and looked over at the kids playing on the playground nearby. They didn't have to deal with problems like this, right? "So he didn't seem strange at all? More unhappy than usual?" He had no idea if this girl could tell if Gilfoyle was unhappy or not. Most people couldn't.

"Nope!" She chimed, and Dinesh imagined her shaking her head happily. "He was pretty upset when I told him he'd have no chance with his crush, but a lot happier when I said he would have every chance with me."

Dinesh tried to imagine Gilfoyle saying 'crush' with a straight face, and he felt part of his brain explode. This was definitely a clue, but he didn't think he'd get anything more out of Melanie, unless he was asking about wedding plans or something (the thought of Gilfoyle in a tux disturbed him greatly).

"Ok, well that's good to hear." He tried to fake enthusiasm, but his voice definitely didn't reflect it. "I'm glad he's got you. I've got to go now, thanks a lot."

"Yeah of course! Tell him I want to meet up with him soon. We've got so much more to talk about!"

Dinesh hung up. His stomach felt kind of unsettled, so he took the walk back to the house real slow.

 


	5. Saturday, Pt. 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finished editing this chapter today as well! Updates will probably be coming way faster, because I finally fixed the chapter that was giving me problems.   
> If you don't like Firefly...I am sorry.

"Oh, so he thinks he can just, what? Ignore me? We live in the same house. I steal his food for most if not all of my meals. He can't avoid me forever."

"Aren't you worried that you might end up ingesting an illegal substance if you take his food?" Richard chimed in. Just like him to focus on the irrelevant part of a conversation.

"No, I know what containers he puts the laced stuff in. And when he tries to slip it to Jared."

Jared's eyes widened in alarm. "Um, is there any chance I could be inform-"

"I can't believe he just decided we weren't going to hang out anymore." Dinesh cut him off. "I never even wanted to talk to him, you know? He forced himself into my life."

Jared looked over at Richard, who was nervously switching his gaze between Jared and Dinesh, trying to decide who it would be better to focus on. Richard was no help with employee mediation situations, which is why Jared was here in the first place. He was glad to feel useful. "Dinesh, you're clearly upset."

"I'm not upset. I'm just annoyed at how illogical it all is. It's hard to avoid anyone, I mean just look at that girl Richard was stalking at Tech Crunch." Richard winced at this, but said nothing. "Believe me, the chance to never have to talk Gilfoyle again delights me. It just can't happen when we both live and work here. "

Jared exchanged a look with Richard. "Ok. Can you think of anything that would have caused him to break off your relationship?"

Dinesh bristled. "We don't have a relationship, Jared. Just angry arguing. It's fun, but it accomplishes nothing."

"So he didn't say anything to you before Wednesday?" Richard said. He really was trying his best, even though he was out of his element. Jared smiled at him. The best part about Richard was how brave he was.

DInesh rolled his eyes. "No. I honestly don't remember what we talk about most of the time."

"Maybe you could talk to him." Jared suggested.

"Are you kidding, Jared? We don't talk. It's like...It's like we're two monkeys who only communicate by throwing shit at each other. There's no need or desire for anything more than that for us." Dinesh crossed his arms in defiance, daring someone to argue with him.

Jared wrinkled his forehead. "Have you never had a calm conversation with him?" Thinking back to his quick talk with Gilfoyle yesterday, he knew it was possible.

Dinesh tried to remember a day when he hadn't got pissed at Gilfoyle. "I can only really think of one."

 

_It was the night the team got back from Tech Crunch Disrupt. Everyone in the house was high off of success and from sleep deprivation (Jared looked less like he was going to faint any second, though, which was probably good). They all walked back into the Incubator together._

_Erlich, ever the partier, decided to light the fire while all of them were standing around the table. "I don't know about the rest of you, but sleeping right now would feel like a defeat."_

_Richard looked over at him. "What else would we be doing?"_

_"Celebrating, of course! Richard, we just won Tech Crunch Disrupt. With our amazing algorithm -"_

_"It's mine, actually..." Richard tried to cut in, but Erlich talked right over him._

_"- there's no chance we don't all come out of this rich. So I suggest a party immediately."_

_"Fine. But I won't drink more than two shots." Richard insisted._

_Erlich grinned._

_Two hours later, after Noah had dropped by and threatened to call the cops about the noise, Erlich had told him to go fuck himself, and Noah actually had called the cops who Erlich recognized from the time the pot in the garage had been discovered and hid in his room until everyone left, Pied Piper ended up sitting around the living room._

_"Well, what do we do now?" Richard asked the room._

_"No idea. I took mushrooms thirty minutes ago, so I can't sleep." Gilfoyle said. "Dinesh talked to a girl tonight, so if he tries to go to bed he's going to end up crying."_

_"Hey, I resent that."_

_"Gentlemen. Having been a part of several afterparties, I can tell you that the best ones involve copious amounts of either sex or media consumption." Erlich stood up, doing his CEO impression. "I suggest that we all pursue the latter, in order to avoid fighting about who got to indulge with me."_

_"No one would ever go for that." Dinesh was disgusted at just the thought._

_Erlich ignored that as he did most complaints and continued: "Now, I have recently become aware that our dear Richard Hendricks has not yet seen Firefly."_

_Dinesh hadn't either. There were some things he just hadn't seen, having grown up in Pakistan and doing university abroad. He'd done the Star Trek thing and the video game thing, but he couldn't experience every aspect of American geek culture. It wasn't like he was going to say this to Erlich, though._

_Jared nearly leapt off the couch in excitement. He headed over to the rack to find the DVD. "Oh, Richard, I used to write fanfiction for this show! I can't believe you haven't joined the Browncoats yet."_

_Richard looked entirely bewildered. "I don't know what any of that means."_

_Erlich started talking again, seeming somewhat annoyed by other people having the stage. "Soon you will, Richard. Soon you will." He half bowed and sat back down._

_No one was paying any attention to Dinesh. Jared was inserting the DVD into the PlayStation, bouncing with excitement, Richard looked nervous but happy to be here, Erlich looked delighted that his suggestion was being taken seriously, and even Gilfoyle looked excited._

_Dinesh leaned over to him. "Hey, Gilfoyle. You like this show?"_

_"Dinesh, everyone who has seen this show likes it. You'll understand after you watch it."_

_"How did you know I hadn't seen it?"_

_"Look at yourself. You're nearly as shifty as Richard on a good day. Don't worry, nobody is going to yell at you for not having seen it."_

_Dinesh was kind of surprised that Gilfoyle had ever been paying enough attention to him to notice. It didn't even seem like Gilfoyle had looked at him since they'd sat down._

_"Besides," Gilfoyle continued, quieter now that the menu screen was up and Erlich was trying to snatch the controller away from Jared, "showing things to other people is cool."_

_Dinesh nodded to himself, feeling more comfortable._

_"Fine, Jared, I will give you the power of the controller." Richard had apparently convinced Erlich to let Jared be in charge of the remote as well. "But I'm warning you as chief visionary of this company, don't abuse it."_

_Halfway through the first episode, Gilfoyle started leaning over every couple of minutes to share some trivia with Dinesh. He didn't do it often enough to distract from the plot, and by the time the third episode started, Dinesh was really getting into the show._

_Just after the fourth episode ended, Jared realized Richard had fell asleep, and he and Erlich quickly decided that it wasn't worth continuing the marathon if the guy they were doing it for wasn't even awake._

_Jared, being Jared, decided to ask who would be who if they cast the members of the house into the universe of Firefly._

_"Well, obviously I would be Mal, since you all follow me." Erlich said._

_Dinesh cut him off there. "Actually, we all follow Richard, so technically he should be Mal."_

_Jared nodded. "Pied Piper wouldn't exist without Richard. Although Richard wouldn't really exist without you. Maybe you're the ship. Or River, which is kind of the same thing."_

_Dinesh was about to argue that that made no sense when Gilfoyle leaned over again. "That doesn't make sense until the last few episodes. Don't worry about it."_

_Erlich laughed. "I would be the badass chick who saves all of your asses. I like it. Who are you, then, Jared?"_

_"Maybe Simon? He sort of keeps everyone on the ship afloat and everything." Richard had apparently woken up at some point in the last few minutes._

_Jared smiled at him. "Thanks, Richard."_

_"Or, maybe..." Richard sat up and rubbed his eyes. "Maybe Inara? 'Cause you don't really do physical healing, I have a terrible doctor for that, but you kind of...emotionally? Keep us all together. Plus, you're like our ambassador to the business world."_

_"I resent that." Erlich said._

_"The ship is what gets them there." Jared said, which was apparently enough to placate Erlich for the time being. "Who are Gilfoyle and Dinesh then?"_

_"The sidekicks. Zoe and Wash. They're there, but they don't run the ship." Erlich and Jared sort of nodded at each other._

_"Excuse you, Wash literally runs the ship. They would go nowhere without him." Gilfoyle said. "Plus, Zoe is awesome."_

_Erlich put up his hands. "Fine, but tell me it doesn't make sense. Plus you are pretty much the married couple of the house. At least until Jared and Richard get past the fiancé stage or whatever."_

_"We'd have to be dating first to get engaged." Jared supplied helpfully, Richard kind of looked like he was going to be sick._

_Erlich ignored him. "So, wait. If Dinesh and Gilfoyle are Zoe and Wash, who's who?"_

_They all sat back for a moment to think about._

_"I'm Zoe." Gilfoyle decided._

_"Why do you get to be the badass one and I have to stay on the ship?" Dinesh argued, offended. He could totally be a badass if he lived on a spaceship._

_"Because, if we were dating, you would clearly be obsessed with me."_

_"I would not!"_

_"Have you seen me? There would be no competition."_

_"I feel like you would be better at flying a spaceship, though."_

_"Well, then I'm better at my job and yours. Just like real life."_

_While Dinesh and Gilfoyle were arguing, Jared, Richard, and Erlich decided that Jian Yang would definitely be the Shepard, since none of them would be the slightest bit surprised if he shot someone out of the blue one day._

_Erlich stood up and stretched. "Ok, losers. This has been fun. Sort of a lame afterparty, but not the worst I've been to. That one had Britney Spears there. Long day. Have a good night and try not to throw up tomorrow, we've only got the one bathroom."_

_The rest of them left pretty quickly after that. As Dinesh was walking out, he heard Jared talking to Richard behind him:_

_"I think Gilfoyle's wrong. He would definitely be Wash."_

_Dinesh didn't know why that thought made him happy, but it did._

_Gilfoyle asked him the next day if he wanted to finish the marathon, but Dinesh had already watched it all before he went to bed. Binging before sleep was the best._

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TBH, I think the guys are totally wrong in this flashback. Gilfoyle and Dinesh are way more like Mal and Inara (just...constantly talking through each other), and Richard and Jared would definitely be the gross married couple that is Zoe and Wash. But in company terms that power structure doesn't make sense, so this is what you get.


	6. Saturday, Pt. 2

#  5\. Saturday Pt. 2

"But that was only that one time. I don't think there was another day where we talked to each other and didn't threaten to murder each other at least once." Dinesh rubbed his hand over his face. How sad was it that the guy he spent almost all of his time with was someone who probably hated him?

No, now that Gilfoyle was avoiding him, he definitely hated him.

"While I can't admit to understanding your relationship completely, I'm going to offer the same advice I would give to anyone with a friendship issue: I think you should talk to him." Jared said.

Dinesh rolled his eyes. "Talk to him? Didn't I already tell you why that wouldn't work?"

Jared shrugged. "He is more likely to share what's wrong with you than either of us."

Erlich piped up from the other room. "And I don't really care."

Jared nodded. "And Erlich doesn't really care."

Richard nodded as well and added, "It's worth a shot."

 

And that was how Dinesh ended up standing outside of Gilfoyle's room, glaring at the door. It was a lot easier to go in when he knew no one was in there. He couldn't hear anything from inside, but the light was on, so he guessed Gilfoyle was probably in there.

He debated knocking, but it seemed like Gilfoyle would probably shut down if he knew it was Dinesh, so instead he grabbed the handle, twisted, and threw the door open.

Gilfoyle was sitting on his bed in front of his laptop and jumped a bit at the sudden interruption. Then he scowled. "What the fuck, Dinesh?" Gilfoyle closed his laptop and threw it to the side. "What if I was naked?"

That distracted Dinesh from the angry rant he'd rehearsed in his head for the last few minutes. "How often do you sit around in your own room naked?"

"Fairly often, considering it's my room."

"Ugh, gross. You should lock the door if you do that."

"Then how would you be able to break into my room whenever you wanted?" Gilfoyle wasn't making eye contact with him, seemingly seething at every object in the room that wasn't Dinesh.

"I'm sure I could break the door down if I needed to."

Gilfoyle snorted. "Sure you could, the pro wrestler you are. And there is no situation in which you would need to break my door down."

"There could be an axe murderer or something."

"Then I would definitely be dead." Gilfoyle shrugged. "And you would be no help and would probably get murdered yourself. So good job there."

There was a pause for a moment where they just stared at each other.

"So, did you want something?" Gilfoyle finally asked. He leaned back on the headboard, looking bored.

"Yeah!" Dinesh felt some of the rage from earlier seeping back into his body. He took a step into the room. "Jared said you were avoiding me."

Gilfoyle finally glanced at him before darting his eyes away again. "Last time I tell that beanpole anything."

Dinesh glared at him. "Why?"

"I don't really like sharing my secrets if they're just going to be passed around the entire house." Gilfoyle was staring at Sadie's cage, which meant he was actually angry. Staring at his hamster always calmed his down.

Dinesh kind of felt bad. Jared was only trying to help him. "No, really, it wasn't Jared's fault, ok. But I meant...why are you avoiding me?"

Gilfoyle's glance darted around the room a few more times before he answered. His voice was quieter than before. "Maybe I don't want to hang out with someone who breaks into my room whenever he feels like it."

Dinesh almost stomped his foot, but stopped himself because he wasn't five. "You know that's not the reason."

Gilfoyle's voice got even softer. "Look, can you please leave?"

Fuck. Fuck fuck fuck. What the fuck was he supposed to do here? "Is this because of Melanie?"

A pained look flashed across Gilfoyle's face for half a second before it reverted to a blank expression. "It's because of you, actually. Get out."

Gilfoyle unfolded himself from the bed and took three quick steps towards Dinesh. Dinesh stepped back once in surprise, putting him back out in the hallway. A second later he had a door in his face.

"She said she wants to hang out with you soon, so have fun trying to suck her face off!" Dinesh yelled at the closed door.

Dinesh looked down at the ground, wondering why he wanted to cry all of a sudden. A few days ago, he would have sworn that Gilfoyle could never inspire any emotion in him but amusement and mild disgust, but here he was, tearing up because the guy wouldn't talk to him.

"Dinesh!" Erlich's voice boomed from the other side of the house. "You're not allowed to break any doors in this house, no matter how much Gilfoyle pisses you off."

Dinesh rolled his eyes and muttered, "Not the time, Erlich."

Erlich stuck his head around the corner to stare at Dinesh. "I'm serious. We do not have the cash on hand to fix the doors in this house. You break that door, Gilfoyle is stuck with an archway for the next three months." His head disappeared again.

"Fuck off, Erlich." Dinesh said, more for his own sake, since he knew Erlich would never be dissuaded by something as simple as that. Then he had a thought. "Wait, hold on!"

He caught up to him right at the backdoor.

Erlich narrowed his eyes at Dinesh. "I'm headed out to the pool. If you want to talk to me, you'll have to join me there."

Dinesh tried to suppress a look of utter disgust.

Erlich seemed to he thinking. "You'll need a swimsuit."

That startled Dinesh. "Why would I need a swimsuit?"

Erlich laughed and clapped him on the shoulder. "Real business discussions only happen when we're both in the pool. Five minutes!"

Dinesh blinked after Erlich, who was retreating to the backyard. "Fuck. I'm going to die."

 

Dinesh tried to look everywhere but Erlich's naked chest. It was just so big that it was hard to avoid. At least he'd convinced him to leave his swimsuit on, even after "but it helps me think better, Dinesh!"

He was trying to find a way to phrase his question so he didn't sound like a teenage girl. "So, have you ever had anyone try to ignore you?" Fuck. Failed that.

Erlich laughed in the loud, brazen way he called 'a leader chortle'. "Fuck, Dinesh, do you know who I am? There are people who ignore me because my success makes them sad. Half of my family can't stand that I built a successful company, so they've stopped inviting me to holiday dinners." Dinesh narrowed his eyes but chose not to comment. "But none of that matters. You have to be good enough that no one can ignore you. For example, the biker girls that I have been speaking with for the past few days. There is no reason why I shouldn't be allowed to sit outside and yell compliments while they pass by, but apparently it's 'lewd' and 'uncomfortable'. I found out they changed their route to go one street over, so now I'm actively taking control of the situation, you see?"

Dinesh stepped away from where Erlich was trying (unsuccessfully) to float on his back while he was ranting. He decided to ignore most of what Erlich had just said. "I'm talking more personally, rather than business."

Erlich laughed again. "I thought you were used to girls ignoring you."

Dinesh grimaced. Why did everyone have to rub that in all the time? "No, it's actually...Gilfoyle." That sounded sad just saying it.

Erlich looked confused and then vaguely panicked. "I don't deal with employee relationship bullshit. Talk to Jared."

This wasn't helping. He'd already tried Jared's way, and it failed miserably. Dinesh tried one more time: "So Gilfoyle hasn't said anything to you?"

"To be frank with you, I assumed Gilfoyle was one of those guys who hated everyone equally. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to do some underwater handstands for cardio purposes."

Dinesh nodded listlessly. "Thanks for the help." He muttered to Erlich's feet.

 

_Several weeks after TechCrunch, Erlich decided to bother them while they were trying to create a usable product from Richard's algorithm._

_"How come I am the only one in this house who uses the pool? Do you even know how nice having a pool is?"_

_Dinesh chanced a glance. He was, of course, wearing only a bathrobe. A very loose bathrobe. Fuck._

_"Gilfoyle, why don't you use the pool?" Erlich demanded, when it was clear nobody was going to respond to him._

_Gilfoyle sighed. "If I said it was against my religion, would you believe me?"_

_Erlich shrugged. "Probably. But only because I think questioning you further might be illegal. Richard! Why don't you swim?"_

_Richard was trying very, very hard not to look at Erlich. Dinesh understood why. Erlich was like a non-essential software update - only when you acknowledged him did he truly get his power. "I get burned easily."_

_Erlich rubbed his chin. "If Richard gets burned, imagine how red Jared would get."_

_Jared, who was also sitting at the table, and who Erlich had apparently not noticed, indeed did look very red. Fascinating._

_"Wait, aren't you going to ask Dinesh why he isn't using the pool?" Of course Gilfoyle had to make sure everyone got scrutinized equally, the fair bastard._

_Erlich shook his head. "No need! Dinesh can't swim. He is doomed to wade only in the shallow waters of life."_

_Gilfoyle laughed at that (and probably Dinesh as well) as Erlich left._

_"I regret telling you that!" Dinesh yelled at Erlich's retreating back. Richard rolled his eyes and got up to grab a snack from the kitchen. Jared followed him not three seconds later._

_Gilfoyle swung his chair around, and Dinesh looked up at the ceiling, just begging..._

_"So you really can't swim?" His voice sounded mocking, and Dinesh spun to glare at him._

_"It's not that funny. Our mansion didn't have a pool. So what?"_

_Gilfoyle chuckled at his anger. Fuck him. "You know, I used to be on a swim team. I could teach you if you wanted."_

_Dinesh nearly clapped his hands with glee. "Wait, you were on a swim team? This is so much better than I ever expected. What was your mascot, the Charging Moose?"_

_Gilfoyle looked down at the floor and mumbled, "The Slippery Beavers."_

_Dinesh laughed loudly. "Fuck, that was better than I could have imagined! That's amazing. Did no one think about that name at all?"_

_Gilfoyle rolled his eyes. "Beaver wasn't really a euphemism in Canada at the time."_

_"Well, it's still a gem." Dinesh was still trying to get his breath back. "Well, thanks but no thanks with the lessons. When would I ever need to be able to swim?"_

_Gilfoyle narrowed his eyes at him. "We live next to an ocean."_

_Dinesh laughed at him. "As if any of us ever go swimming, even with the swimming pool in the yard. The beach is completely lost on me."_

_Gilfoyle threw up his hands, giving up. "Fine. Good luck not drowning when Bighead inevitably crashes his boat."_

_"As if I would ever get on that thing while he was driving."_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm real excited to post the next chapter you guys. Probably my favorite one in this fic.


	7. Sunday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dinesh has a rough day you guys

Dinesh woke up with one thought, and one thought only. _I need to pee. I need to pee so bad._

Ordinarily, he would check for any sort of weird shit Gilfoyle thought it would be funny to put outside his room. He'd tried out the classic 'pour a bucket of water when the door is opened' trick, which, because it was Gilfoyle, had something absolutely pungent in it. Dinesh didn't want to know what. But, since he was preoccupied with his bladder, and Gilfoyle had been ignoring him for several days now, Dinesh threw his door open and hurried down the hall.

A few minutes later, feeling much less distressed, Dinesh re-emerged from the bathroom, and nearly ran into a guy wearing only sweatpants and no shirt. The guy was thin, so not Erlich, therefore Dinesh assumed the only other person in this house who would walk around shirtless.

"Sorry, Gilfoyle." Dinesh was blinking slowly, not really looking at him.

"Oh, that's not me, man." Dinesh looked up in alarm. Some guy with fairly long and unkempt blonde hair and a surfer-style inflection in his voice stood, smiling back at him. "Wait, is that B's last name? Dude's got a messed up name, for sure."

"What are...what?" Dinesh was sputtering, hoping the meaning of his question got through his surprised reaction.

The guy just kept smiling at him, which was infuriating. "I met the guy in a bar last night. He said his name was 'Bertram' or something stupid like that, so I just decided to shorten it."

Dinesh was filled with the sudden urge to punch this guy in the face and yell _It's not a stupid name!_ which was doubly confusing, because:

1\. He had told Gilfoyle how stupid his name was on several occasions

2\. He had always been firmly on the 'flight' side of the Fight or Flight debate

But still, he wanted to hit this guy's stupid face that was _still_ smiling at him. He decided to do what he did in most uncomfortable situations - escape to the kitchen to make some coffee.

Which is how he ended up sitting at his place at the table, sipping his coffee and staring off towards the hallway, where the guy had disappeared. Since he made the coffee, he had been joined by Richard and Erlich, and had quickly explained the story to them.

Of course, Erlich being Erlich, he couldn't let the idea of Gilfoyle bringing home a guy go.

"How attractive would you say this guy was, Dinesh?" Erlich was doing his Steve Jobs hand thing again, ready to analyze the appearance of the mystery surfer guy.

"Um, I don't know, Erlich. I'm not gay."

Erlich banged his hand on the table. "Come on, Dinesh. You don't have to want to fuck him, just tell me, on a scale of Jared to me, where this guy falls."

Richard winced. "Why are you and Jared the ends of this scale?"

"Well, Richard, you've seen Jared, so you should know why he's the bottom." Richard looked like he was going to argue, but Erlich continued talking. "And I am nearly god-like in both business sense and attractiveness. Name one person who's met me who has not at least thought about bedding me."

Richard looked disgusted, but not like he was going to vomit, which was slightly better than regular Sunday mornings. "Well, me, for instance."

"Also me." Dinesh muttered, but he didn't believe for a second that Erlich was listening to him. He continued to watch the hallway for more signs of movement.

"Sober you, Richard, maybe not. At that toga party, though, you absolutely would have ripped your bedsheets off right there if I hadn't gently rejected you," Erlich crossed his arms and leaned back in his chair, daring Richard to argue.

Richard's eyes grew wide. "Oh, fuck. That's not what I wanted to hear. Fuck, that's disgusting." With that he was off to the bathroom. So this was a normal Sunday after all.

While Richard was away, the blonde guy strolled out of the living area of the house. He was smiling again.

"Can one of you guys point the way to the kitchen? I'm starving, and B's still asleep."

Erlich jammed a thumb over his shoulder while Dinesh tried to restrain himself from openly glaring. The guy disappeared while Jared and Richard both walked into the room from the other side.

Richard's eyes followed the blonde man out of the room. "Is that him?"

Dinesh nodded, and then spun to Erlich. "And that's the worst fucking part. He calls him B. Who gives Gilfoyle a nickname?"

"Technically, addressing Gilfoyle by his last name is a nickname." Richard supplied helpfully, but Dinesh waved away his argument.

"Erlich, you're in charge of this house. Can't you do anything? Gilfoyle can't just bring whoever the hell he wants in here."

Erlich scratched his chin. "Technically, no. One of Gilfoyle's objections to this living arrangement was his pursuit of sexual conquest. I had to assure him that I would not interfere with that part of his life. Besides, even if I did, that guy is one of the cleaner people he's brought in here."

Dinesh frowned. This was not how he was hoping this would go. He imagined throwing the guy out of the house by his hair, which was a really tempting mental image.

"I mean, do you remember some of the Satanist chicks he's brought in here? They're the biggest drug users that have ever come through this house, and I live here."

Richard laughed and leaned back in his chair. "Do you remember Danielle? She was the worst one."

"Oh, right! She was the one that tried to show Bighead her erect nipples, right? To help 'inspire' his app?" Now Erlich was laughing as well.

"Ha, that might have been Bighead's first time seeing a half-naked girl in, like, his life."

Jared, who had showed up a few minutes ago, joined in the discussion as well. "I don't know Nelson as well as the rest of you, but Danielle sounds like an interesting character. And I remember Tara. How many girls has Gilfoyle brought home?"

Erlich and Richard leaned back in their chairs to count on their fingers. This was not what Dinesh needed right now. He stormed off to seethe alone in his room for a while. At least he wouldn't have to see that guy's stupid, goofy grin any longer.

 

Dinesh only had to lie on his bed for about five minutes before he started feeling guilty. At first he pushed the feeling away, since Gilfoyle was the one who brought a guy who was clearly a douchebag into the house. But as he thought about it more, he realized that Gilfoyle was very clearly not straight, which meant that a whole lot of things that Dinesh had said to him had turned out to be incredibly offensive.

Which is how he ended up outside Gilfoyle's door again. This was beginning to become a habit. Dinesh realized that whenever they'd hang out, Gilfoyle was always the one who came to Dinesh's room to get him. The few times they'd played handheld games, they'd sat on Dinesh's bed. He'd never thought about it before, but that was kind of odd. Why hadn't they ever gone to Gilfoyle's room? Had Gilfoyle just always been the one to ask Dinesh to do things?

"Hi." Gilfoyle stated simply when he opened the door, interrupting Dinesh's thoughts. He (thankfully) was fully clothed. His hair was a little messier than usual, but nothing that screamed _just-fucked_.

"So, we saw a guy coming out of here." Dinesh inwardly grimaced. He never knew how to say things in a sensitive way, which was hilarious when he was just hanging out with Gilfoyle, but didn't help at times like this.

Gilfoyle looked at the ground, biting his lip. "Everyone?" He looked back up at Dinesh hopefully.

Dinesh nodded. "Pretty much. Sorry."

Gilfoyle nodded, still looking at the ground.

Dinesh scrambled for something comforting to say. "I'm sorry." He said again, feeling lame as the words were coming out of his mouth. "It just...kind of surprised us, is all."

"Is it really that shocking?" Gilfoyle's voice was even flatter than usual. Dinesh considered his next few words carefully.

"I guess not? Out of everyone in the house, you'd probably be the most likely to bring some random guy over for sex." Seeing Gilfoyle's eyebrow raise, he quickly added, "I assume. You mostly just have sex with the girls you bring over, so I assumed that it would be same for a guy. Sorry. Again."

Gilfoyle had a small smile on his face, so he took that for a victory. "Yeah. I couldn't have talked to that guy for more than the twenty or so minutes it took to get him back here, so it was mostly just fucking."

Dinesh paused again, feeling incredibly awkward. "Look...I'm sorry."

"Why do you keep apologizing?"

"Because we are - well, were, I guess? - pretty good friends. And I made a lot of jokes to your face. That it turns out are about you. So. Sorry. Why didn't you tell anyone though?"

Gilfoyle smiled again, but it looked pained. "Well, mostly because of those jokes. It was fun kidding around with you, but I knew that if you knew you'd turn it into this whole...thing. Like what you're doing now."

Dinesh almost said he was sorry again, but he already felt like he was spending this entire conversation apologizing. He leaned against the opposite wall. "So. Is this the first guy you've brought home?"

Gilfoyle shook his head no.

"How often do you do this?"

Gilfoyle scoffed. "That's irrelevant."

"Fine. I'll be more clear. How many guys have you fucked?"

"Maybe five or six? And how come you're assuming I'm the one doing the fucking?"

Dinesh waved his hand in the air to get rid of that mental image. "Were you ever dating any of them, or were they just random bar pulls?"

Gilfoyle sighed. "Just randoms. They're from different places though. Usually I like other Satanists, because they really understand the casual sex I like. But no, I haven't dated any of them."

"Dude, that's...I mean, I know your entire reputation is basically living on the edge or whatever, but that's gross even for you."

"Well, it wasn't exactly my decision." Gilfoyle said and then immediately looked like he regretted it.

Dinesh didn't say anything, but apparently there was some sort of question on his face, so Gilfoyle continued.

"Dude, you've seen me, okay? It's not like I'm attractive to the vast majority of the population." Dinesh had no idea why he wanted to argue against that so badly. He'd sort of assumed Gilfoyle was at the top of the Pied Piper Attractiveness Scale. "Most guys, and most girls, are interested for one night only. There's just more straight girls than gay guys, so they're the ones I've had actual relationships with."

"Oh. Ok." Dinesh had no idea what to say, so he just nodded.

Gilfoyle seemed to be considering something. "Look, thanks for coming by. To apologize." He stared at Dinesh for a minute. "It's hard to ignore you when you keep coming here to bother me."

Dinesh shrugged. "Well, you're not coming to bug me anymore, so."

Gilfoyle smiled at him again. It was a sad smile, but it was kind of nice. "Have a good day, Dinesh." He shut the door, but gently this time.

"You too, Gilfoyle." Dinesh said quietly to the closed door.

 

##  Jared Interlude Pt. 3

"So, if we count the three that came back with him that one night - "

"And the two we're not sure whether he actually slept with or not - "

"There's at least 16. And that's if we noticed them all, which is not necessarily true." Richard finished.

"While not as numerous or wide spread as my experiences the last year, it is still fairly impressive considering the average level in this house." Erlich added.

Jared nodded. "I do hope he's using protection. With that many women, there is an increasingly higher chance of him impregnating one of them."

All three of them sat in horrified silence for a minute, contemplating tiny Gilfoyles running around. They all shuddered.

Jared had another question, knowing he'd missed most of the girls before Pied Piper had come into existence, and curious if he'd missed anything else. "So, is the first man he's brought home?"

Erlich and Richard had to think about it, but they both nodded.

"Maybe that's why Dinesh is so unsettled." Richard mused.

Jared tilted his head in confusion. "I didn't think he was quite that bigoted."

Richard chuckled. "No, he's just not very sensitive about social issues usually. I think it's more that _Gilfoyle_ was with a guy than the fact that someone in this house was with a guy."

Jared still looked equally confused. "But why would he be concerned about Gilfoyle's sex life?"

Richard shrugged. "Well, he's, like, his best friend. So I guess Dinesh would just be surprised to learn that about someone he's that close too."

"Well, I've known both of you for several months now, and I couldn't accurately categorize your sexual orientations." Jared said.

Erlich and Richard both looked at each other. Richard snatched up the bag of chips that was lying on the table.

"Well, I consider myself straight. Women are too fascinating for me to really give any attention to another gender." Erlich said.

Richard was looking around nervously, and the chips were disappearing more rapidly.

"Richard?" Erlich asked.

"You don't have to share, but I do think you should feel comfortable with us if you want to do so." Jared added.

Gilfoyle strolled into the room, and Richard glanced up at him nervously before quietly saying "Bisexual? I think? I'm not...I'm not sure."

Jared smiled at him supportively, and Gilfoyle and Erlich (thankfully) chose not to comment. "It's okay to be unsure, Richard. The important thing is that you feel safe to explore your identity and who you are." He placed a supportive hand on Richard's shoulder, glad that Richard wasn't shuddering away from him.

Gilfoyle walked behind Richard and stole several chips from his bag, even as Richard was trying to wave him away.

"I'm assuming you're all talking about this because of my visitor from last night?" Gilfoyle smirked, probably happy to be the center of attention. They all nodded in various states of shame (although Erlich seemed almost proud). "So, Jared, did you share?"

Jared's eyes widened as he realized he hadn't. "I consider myself gay. I hope that's ok with everyone here."

Gilfoyle laughed at him. "Well, most of us here have at least admitted to an allowance for men, so I doubt anyone is going to be judgmental."

Richard turned around to look at Gilfoyle. "How about you, Gilfoyle?"

"I don't particularly like the labels that get thrown around at these things. I consider myself attracted to people, not gender." Gilfoyle stated while snatching more chips. Richard wasn't trying to fight him now.

Erlich leaned back in his chair. "So, does that mean you're bisexual? Gay and uncomfortable?"

"Actually, he sounds pansexual." Jared piped up. "At least, from what I've read."

Gilfoyle rolled his eyes and started to walk out of the room. "That sounds suspiciously like a label." He paused for a second to think. "You can call me whatever you prefer as long as you don't try to make me wear a button."

After Gilfoyle left, there were several minutes where all three of them typed on their own computers and didn't talk to each other.

All of a sudden, Carla walked into the room from the direction of the kitchen, and threw a casual "What's up?" in the general direction of everyone.

"Wait, Carla. Why are you here? Are the other employees around somewhere?" Jared asked in confusion.

"Nope. Erlich invited Monica over last night, and she convinced me to come along to stop any 'sex shenanigans'", she used her hands to make air quotes, "that Erlich was going to try. Anyway, turned out he actually had serious business stuff to chat about, so I went outside and fell asleep in the chair by the pool."

Everyone turned to look at Erlich, who shrugged.

"I quite honestly do not remember that at all. Were my eyes red?"

Carla considered this. "No, but they were kinda jerking around everywhere. Don't worry, I don't think she noticed."

Erlich breathed a slight sigh of relief, which was interesting, since he almost never seemed to care what people thought of him.

Carla was about to open the front door, but then doubled back. "By the way, which one of you has surprisingly good taste in men?" She pointed in the direction of the kitchen. "If he's a new employee or something, Monica already called dibs."

"Wait, you sent her a picture?" Erlich called after her.

Carla shrugged. "What? I'm on Snapchat."

 

Dinesh woke up, blinking rapidly. When had he even fallen asleep? He checked his phone to find that only two hours had passed. It was the middle of the afternoon. So that meant...

He walked out to the work table.

"Has anyone seen Gilfoyle?" He asked the room.

Jared shrugged. "He went out a while ago. I tried to ask where he was going but he told me to eff off. You could try to text him?"

Dinesh shook his head. "No, that's okay. I'm guessing Carla's not here either?" At everyone's answering shrug, he walked back into the hallway with all of their bedrooms. He sat on his bed, staring at his phone. The only person he could think of (besides Melanie, which was out of the question) who Gilfoyle would talk to about stuff like this was their mutual friend Carla.

He sent her a text. "Hey, can we meet? Outside the house? Haven't hung out in a while."

"Jan's Bar?" Carla sent back quickly. Dinesh had no idea where that was, but he never did with bars. He decided to agree and look it up later.

Dinesh shot back a quick "Sounds great" before he closed Gilfoyle's laptop and went to pull on nicer pants.

 

He ended up being at least five minutes late. 'Jan's Bar' was not the name of the bar, but when he realized this, it wasn't too hard to figure out (from some intensive Googling) that it was a nickname for 'Janet's Red Glass', one of the smaller gay bars in town. Dinesh was trying not to let the gay bar thing freak him out too much. This was the first time he was going to a gay bar, but it was also the first time he was going to talk seriously to Carla, which seemed more significant at the moment.

He pushed open the door to the bar, which was predictably outfitted with red stained glass. The inside was neither as smoky nor as flashy as he'd imagined. For the most part, it looked like a regular bar, but everyone's hair was way cooler.

"Dinesh?" A voice drew his eyes to the far corner of the back room. Carla was sitting nursing a pink cocktail.

Dinesh nervously waved hello and sat down. "Sorry for the out of the blue invitation. You weren't trying to meet anyone here or anything, right?"

Carla raised an eyebrow at him. "I will after you leave. Seriously man, stop looking so jumpy. Nobody's gonna shove you against a wall if you don't want him to." She smiled at his expression (which was definitely even more nervous than before) and took another sip of her drink. "Don't worry. I understand."

Dinesh looked up in surprise. "You do? I haven't even told you my problem yet."

"Of course. I told Gilfoyle you would be concerned if he tried this, but he thought this was the only way. Plus, you'd never invite me to hang out outside the house unless you were having a problem with someone there. Gotta be the thing with Gilfoyle." She rolled her eyes. "You want an explanation, I assume?"

Dinesh nodded. He knew that Gilfoyle and Carla talked, but the fact that she already knew exactly what he wanted to talk about was kind of annoying. Why was everyone out of the loop about Gilfoyle but him?

Carla sighed. "Alright, so first thing you need to know about Gilfoyle. You probably know this already, but he's impulsive and decisive. That's an awful combination, because as soon as he decides on something, that's what he's going to do."

"I still don't understand why he wants to avoid me." Dinesh clasped his fingers together under the table. He had no idea why this was causing him so much anxiety. It shouldn't have been that big of a deal, but this past week was one of the worst of his life since he'd gone to university.

Carla looked at him. Her eyes had a tinge of pity instead of the usual hard judgment, which wasn't new for women looking at Dinesh, but he couldn't figure out what it meant in this instance. "Look, if I tell you...I mean, you're here and stalking him and all, so I wouldn't expect it or anything, but please don't hold it against him. That was his one fear."

Dinesh nodded, still confused.

Carla sighed. "He's avoiding you out of some sort of misguided idea that it will get rid of his feelings."

Dinesh narrowed his eyes. He was even more confused now. "Feelings?"

"For you."

"I don't...I don't understand."

Carla rolled her eyes. "I've seen him around you. I would have guessed it was fairly obvious. That's why I went along with his plan in the first place - I kind of thought you were purposefully ignoring him." She looked him up and down. "But I guess you are pretty oblivious."

"But now he's ignoring me." Dinesh pointed out, ignoring the instinct to share that he was voted Most Observant in his primary school. Now wasn't the time to defend his honor.

Carla nodded. "Ridiculous, right? But wait. You really don't know?"

Dinesh bit his lip. "I'm not sure if I understand what you're saying."

Carla outright laughed at him, which Dinesh found kind of patronizing. "He likes you. He would never phrase it like that, obviously, but he does." There was a long, painful moment where they just stared at each other. "Did you really not know?"

Dinesh shook his head slowly. "I thought he was straight." He thought for another moment. "Until today, I guess. I never really imagined him liking guys."

"And how about liking you?" Carla prodded. He was going to give her a lot of shit later. She was clearly enjoying the fact she got a front row seat to this drama.

"Well, I don't really imagine anyone liking me." Dinesh looked down at his hands, fiddling with his thumbs. He looked back up suddenly. "What do I do?"

Carla stared at him. "I guess that depends. What do you want to do?"

"Well..." Dinesh thought for a while. "I want Gilfoyle to stop avoiding me." He thought about some jokes he could make at Gilfoyle's expense, but they all sounded too cruel in his head, which wasn't all that common.

Carla nodded. "I think you could do that. Are you comfortable with his feelings?"

Dinesh shrugged. He honestly didn't know. "Honestly, I'm still not totally convinced you're not some part of an elaborate prank. It doesn't seem real."

"And if it is?"

Dinesh shook his head. "I don't know."

 

_Dinesh honestly couldn't believe how turned on he'd gotten. He always knew he liked good code, but he'd never had a reaction like that. The embarrassment and shame washed over him while he sat down at the table._

_Gilfoyle made fun of him. Of course he did. Of course that asshole couldn't just let this go._

_He downed the drink Monica brought without really acknowledging her arrival. Gilfoyle handed Dinesh his as well._

_"Yeah, drink it up. It's not gonna change who you are."_

_As he felt the burning hot liquid run down his throat, Dinesh tried not to think too hard about what Gilfoyle had said. He had almost had sex with a girl and ruined it. Again. That's who he was._

_Right?_

_Gilfoyle kept staring at him as he drank several more in a row, like he was trying to tell Dinesh something with his eyes._

It's not gonna change who you are.

_Dinesh threw back another one. Gilfoyle's eyes were getting blurrier, and what he was saying to Dinesh got further and further away, as did the voice in the back of his head._

It's not gonna change who you are.

_Even when they got back up to the hotel room and started working, Dinesh still kept drinking. The code he wrote might have been utter shit, but he didn't care. As long as he didn't have to acknowledge the look that was in Gilfoyle's eyes as he was trying to cut Dinesh off, he'd be ok. He'd be fine._

 


	8. Monday

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Holy internalized homophobia, Batman! Also warning for alcohol abuse. 
> 
> Shoutout to sineshchugtai on tumblr for bothering me into updating this with super subtle anon messages.

Dinesh woke up with the worst headache. It was almost as bad as the hangover he'd had after the Code Gay incident. Which was the last thing he remembered thinking about yesterday, but that was in the afternoon after meeting Carla in the bar. What else had he done last night?

He glanced off the side of his bed and spotted his shoes, which he'd apparently thrown against the wall last night. He also seemed to recall some shitty tequila that Carla convinced him to drink.

"Fuck." Dinesh whispered to himself and then grimaced. The sound hurt his head.

He glared at the shoes, as if they were to blame for this. That had to be the most alcohol he'd ever consumed at one time. He'd always been a lightweight, so the fact that he didn't remember much after he had (presumably) started drinking wasn't surprising.

_"How often do you actually go to bars?" Gilfoyle threw out. He was reading a book, so not technically paying attention to Dinesh, but he'd been making critical comments while Dinesh tried to write an OkCupid profile. A pretty normal Thursday night, after all._

_"I don't, but I feel like girls are more into a guy who can go out and have fun with them, you know?" Dinesh noticed a typo in the sentence he'd just written. Fuck, typos weren't attractive at all._

_Gilfoyle took his eyes off the page he was reading to stare at him. "But you can't go out and have fun with them. You're a loser. I say that as your friend."_

_"I can too! I know how to party." Dinesh insisted. He'd gone to college. He spent 98% of the time studying, but he went. He knew what guys his age were supposed to be doing, at least._

_Gilfoyle laughed at that. "Fine. Let's go to a bar. You flirt with one girl, I'll let you keep that in your profile."_

_"You're not in charge of what goes on my profile." Dinesh argued, but started to suggest places anyways._

_Eventually, they got tired of not agreeing on a place (even after they took the Aviato van and started driving, which they thought would help them decide faster). They ended up at a Denny's._

_Dinesh groaned, his head on the table. "Why are we even here? Nobody likes this place."_

_Gilfoyle glowered at him over his menu, which was partially obscuring his face. "I like this place. Some of the slams are good, you should try them."_

_"You're way too happy to be at a Denny's during the day. This is a last-ditch, 3 AM sort of place. Plus, this isn't even a bar! I thought you wanted alcohol."_

_Gilfoyle shook his head. "I just wanted to see you disappointed. Mission accomplished."_

_Dinesh flipped him off, even though he was looking at his menu again. "Enjoy your fucking unhealthy trash food. I'm not getting anything."_

_"Don't you like pancakes?" Gilfoyle said, looking at him. "They have those."_

_Dinesh sighed. "I guess it's better than watching you eat whatever the hell a 'Lumberjack Slam' is."_

_Dinesh ate a pancake and a half. They were stunningly mediocre. His anger at this was doubled since Gilfoyle seemed to enjoy his food greatly. He was frowning as Gilfoyle finished._

_"You know," Gilfoyle said after they got up to pay, "I could take you to this restaurant I know. I feel like you'd actually really like it."_

_Dinesh rolled his eyes. "As if I'd want to try anywhere you go. I'd probably get poisoned."_

As parts of yesterday started coming back to him, he remembered what he and Carla had talked about. Gilfoyle having feelings for him still felt like a dream. Some sort of elaborate joke Gilfoyle was pulling on him for kicks.

Even as he was considering this possibility he knew it couldn't be true. Gilfoyle wouldn't ever joke about having emotions, because Dinesh could see through it immediately. Plus, it had been several days of them largely avoiding each other, which he knew wasn't fun for either of them. Gilfoyle went on more dates than him, but it wasn't like he had more friends to hang out with. And, as he thought about, he remembered all the times that Gilfoyle had been asking him to go places and do things that they didn't normally do. Were those dates? Was Gilfoyle trying to ask him out? Dinesh had turned him down so many times...

Slowly, Dinesh started to accept that this was real.

It wasn't like he was uncomfortable with gay people. He met gay guys before, this was northern California for fuck's sake, but he still couldn't rationalize Gilfoyle liking him of all people. Gilfoyle had had sex with over ten people. Why would he be into Dinesh?

Dinesh tried to imagine going on a date with Gilfoyle, but immediately stopped himself. Maybe Gilfoyle could fuck guys, but Dinesh couldn't even see himself holding hands with a man. Much less Gilfoyle. His brain gave a little internal whimper.

He tried thinking back over the time he'd known Gilfoyle to see if he could remember anything that would confirm this story. He could remember the Code Gay incident really well, since his brain seemed to store any embarrassing moments in a steel trap. As Dinesh was thinking about getting really drunk at the end of the night, he remembered Gilfoyle's eyes, and how imploring and almost begging they were. And he remembered that when Gilfoyle first pointed out the code was his, he'd started out sounding happy and hopeful and quickly became angry as Dinesh became more disgusted.

As soon as Dinesh had realized that the code had come from Gilfoyle, all sexual pleasure he'd got from it seeped away. It creeped him out to look at it or think about it (and Gilfoyle, being himself, had emailed Dinesh the code when they'd gotten back from the conference). The fact that he'd gotten turned on from it kind of made him sick. He had finally understood what Richard must feel like 90% of the time.

Dinesh also remembered all of the shit that he and Gilfoyle had done together (the smelling contest, debating over whether or not to let Blaine die), and he sort of understood why Gilfoyle would have gotten feelings for him at some point. Dinesh was kind of the only person Gilfoyle actually enjoyed himself with.

He also thought about how much he liked to try to needle information out of Gilfoyle about his life in Canada or his family or even what the fuck the guy had been doing before Pied Piper. He remembered how much time they'd wasted "working" while actually making fun of Jared or Richard (or both).

Dinesh looked over at the shoes again. _It's not gonna change who you are._

He sat up.

 

"Richard, I need two days off." Dinesh demanded as he swept into the room.

Richard looked up from his laptop, startled. "Um, we don't really have a policy on vacation time. Do we Jared?"

Jared shook his head. "We don't."

Richard made some sort of awkward gesture that was probably supposed to mean something. "I mean, we've got a whole lot of work to do here still, so is it important? What are you doing?"

Dinesh was about to answer with several swear words when Jared jumped in. "We're actually doing really well at the moment. I don't see a reason Dinesh can't take a few days to himself. We're not in any hurry." He smiled in a placating way at both Richard and Dinesh in turn.

Dinesh nodded at them and turned around, leaving the room quickly so they wouldn't have any chance to change their minds.

 

Dinesh held his tea between his hands, letting the cup warm his fingertips. It was winter in Palo Alto, which meant rain. He had hung his rain jacket on the chair behind him, and it crinkled every time he moved. Usually the tea's aroma helped soothe his nerves, but Dinesh's mind was too busy panicking to process the smell, so he settled for warm hands and trying not to glance up at his cousin every two seconds.

Wajeed rapped his knuckles on the table all of a sudden, making Dinesh jump.

"So, what's wrong?" He demanded, taking a sip of his coffee.

Dinesh shrugged. "Why does something have to be wrong?"

His cousin's stare over the coffee mug grew judgmental. "You're not here to talk about my Sis app, because it's fucking great." He stopped his grand gesturing for a moment to glance at Dinesh.

"Yeah, yeah, of course it's great." Dinesh quickly agreed, internally wincing.

"And it's gonna make me shit tons of money, like ten times what even Bro made..." Dinesh remembered that Bro's value came in just under the amount the Kickstarter raised. "...and then I'm gonna invite you over to my fuckin' gigantic mansion, and we can play pool."

Dinesh raised an eyebrow. "Do you even know how to play pool?"

Wajeed's eyes still flashed with excitement, unhindered by his limitations. "I can learn. I can even get pool lessons or something. Money, man. And unhindered by family 'expectations', or whatever." Wajeed rolled his eyes. "But seriously, what did you want? I've gotta go fuck this girl later."

"The one from the Olympics?"

"Naw, she dumped me. I'm with a Kennedy now." His cousin's eyes narrowed as Dinesh continued his silence. "Dude, seriously, she's hot and rich, this has got to be quick."

Dinesh sighed. "Okay, so what if a friend of yours told you he was gay?" He tried to ignore the fact that Gilfoyle had gone very far out of his way to avoid telling Dinesh that.

Wajeed gave him a look. "Dude, if you're gay, you can just tell me. No need to do the 'my friend' thing."

"I'm not!" Dinesh let go of his cup of tea to wave his hands in the air. "Seriously, I'm not." He tried to think of some way to convince his cousin of this, but couldn't come up with something foolproof. "I promise." He finished lamely.

"O-kay..." Wajeed nodded slightly. He still didn't believe him, the bastard. "So what? Some dude you know has Grindr and now you're worried he's predatory or something?"

"No!" Dinesh automatically protested, before he realized that, yes, technically, Gilfoyle was lusting after him. Or something. That still weirded him out.

"Good. Because this is northern California. If you hadn't met a few gay people by now, it would just be sad. I mean, you don't meet that many people anyway. But California, man." Wajeed shook his head and picked his coffee back up again.

Dinesh thought it over. "Yeah, I mean, I've met gay guys before? But no one I've ever been close to. So I guess it's just weird trying to get used to the idea of a guy I thought was strictly into women is suddenly fucking men as well."

They sat in silence for a minute, Wajeed clearly not knowing what to say, and Dinesh having every idea but being too scared to go for it.

Finally, Dinesh decided to be brave. "What happens if I'm gay?"

His cousin nearly choked on his coffee. "What?"

Dinesh glanced around the shop nervously. "You know what I said."

Wajeed took a moment to collect himself. "I thought you said you weren't!" Dinesh just shrugged at him helplessly. If his cousin thought Dinesh could get through a single conversation right now without spinning around in circles, he was an even bigger disappointment to the family than previously thought.

Wajeed continued: "I thought I was the family embarrassment in that area."

Dinesh's eyes widened. "Wait, you've dated guys?"

Wajeed rolled his eyes. "Come on, man. You know me, I don't date. I've fucked guys. It's kind of fun. But you?"

"I haven't...done that." Sensing that his cousin wanted more of an explanation, he continued. "I just think I might like someone."

"Is it that Gilfoyle guy?"

Dinesh looked up in surprise. "How'd you know?"

Wajeed shrugged. "You've been obsessed with each other for like...ever."

Dinesh's brain was reeling. This entire conversation had been too much. If his cousin, who he saw maybe once a month at most, knew that he and Gilfoyle were...something, that meant everyone else knew as well. Richard...Jared...Dinesh's eyes widened. Erlich.

He looked Wajeed in the eyes again, knowing that his face looked panicked and frightened but not particularly caring. "What the fuck do I do?"

Wajeed tapped his chin, thinking hard. "Well, that depends. Is Gilfoyle the guy you were telling me about earlier?"

Dinesh's nose wrinkled almost involuntarily. "Yeah. He had some...surfer dude over last night. I can't even think about it."

His cousin nodded understandingly. "Well, you wouldn't! Can't think about another guy fucking your man."

"He's not my man." Dinesh protested.

"Ok, sure, but he could be. I mean, you like him. He likes you. What's the issue?"

"Us being together feels so wrong. It kind of makes my skin crawl." The tea had long since cooled off and was no longer calming. Dinesh stared at the useless cup in disgust.

"Dude. You said you liked him. Why would that make your skin crawl?" Wajeed honestly looked completely lost, and Dinesh felt that way, too. He sighed.

"This is the sort of thing I'd always talk to mom and dad about. They give such great advice."

Wajeed laughed at that. "And that's why you're a virgin at 26 years old." Dinesh glared at him. "But seriously, dude, your side of the family is even more conservative than mine is, and I'm only allowed home if I pretend to be looking for my future wife. Maybe figure out if you and him are real first."

Dinesh ran his fingers through his hair. "I have no idea how to go about that."

Wajeed thought for another minute. "Do you have another friend? Like a mom friend or something? They usually give good advice."

 

##  Jared Interlude Pt. 4

Jared was trying (and utterly failing) to put together a memo for Richard. It was such a silly thing to be stuck on, too, which was the sad part. He used to put together ten of these a day for Gavin when he worked at Hooli. All this one contained was an update on the alternative agenda for the team given Dinesh's absence. Jared was having trouble with the phrasing for some reason.

"Hey, Jared, do you have a minute?"

Speaking of Dinesh. Jared set down the laptop he was working on the coffee table and moved over to one side of the couch.

"Of course I do, Dinesh. What do you need?"

Dinesh fidgeted and didn't sit down. "I'm sorry, I'm...I don't know how to say this."

Jared tilted his head. "Do you need help with pronunciation?"

Dinesh gave him a funny look. "Dude, that's racist, my English is amazing. No, I...Fuck, you're never going to judge me. What am I nervous about? I like Gilfoyle."

The rapid transition stunned Jared for a minute. He sat, dazed. "Ah."

Now Dinesh looked truly nervous. "Dude, um...you're not weird about it or anything, right? I thought you were the president of some society or something."

"An advocate isn't the leader of a movement." Jared said automatically before he got a hold of himself. "You should sit down."

Growing up, Jared was always given tea before he had a difficult conversation (his social worker was nice in that way). He put on the kettle and sighed, holding onto the counter for support.

This wasn't how this was supposed to go. Jared knew that Gilfoyle had feelings for Dinesh, of course he did, you couldn't spend that much time with two people who argue so loudly and not notice, but for Dinesh to like him back? People didn't reciprocate crushes. Not in Jared's experience. And yet...

The kettle started whistling, cutting off his thoughts. There was the distant sound of Erlich running through the other side of the house, yelling, "The bikers are back!” which definitely meant an imminent restraining order.

A minute later, he sat back down and offered one cup to Dinesh, keeping one for himself. Dinesh smiled.

"I'm having so much tea today. I must be stressed out."

Jared took a minute to think of how best to start the conversation. "Does this situation stress you out?"

Dinesh shrugged and said, "Sorta", which meant _a whole lot, obviously._

Jared nodded, deciding to take the implied answer instead of the audible one. "Does he know?"

Dinesh snorted. "Gilfoyle's avoiding me. So there's no way he would know."

Jared decided not to point out that Gilfoyle was doing kind of a terrible job of avoiding Dinesh anyway. He also decided not to share Gilfoyle's secret. Even though he wasn't working with LGBT advocacy groups as much these days, he didn't have to eschew all their rules.

"Do you think he has feelings for you as well?" He started out light, hinting.

That made DInesh roll his eyes. "I don't think Gilfoyle has feelings for anyone. Sexual urges, sure, but he has no interest in going out to the movies and holding hands with me, or buying flowers or some shit."

Jared made a mental note of all the things Dinesh clearly wanted to do on dates. He couldn't point out that Gilfoyle would _also_ want to do all of the aforementioned, with Dinesh specifically, but they were his friends.  He needed to push them in the right direction at least.

"Are you sure? Have you ever asked him about his dating life?"

"Right, because we totally do our hair and gossip about our sex life. I thought you were supposed to be helpful."

Jared had completely missed the point where he'd promised to be helpful, even though he was trying his best. "I'm just saying, he's your friend and he's always going to be. I haven't met very many people that can stand to be around him as long as you have. If you have feelings for him, you might as well try. At least then you won't have to wonder."

Dinesh grimaced and stood up. "I already know, man." But as he walked out of the living room, he seemed to be considering it, so Jared counted it as a win in his amateur-therapist career.

As he sat, smiling to himself for trying to help his friends, Jared started to consider his own advice. He had no evidence that Richard had any sort of non-platonic feelings for him. And maybe he would want to just focus on building the company ( _their_ company) without any distractions.

But he could try.

Jared stood up in the most decisive way he'd ever stood in his life. He marched into the other room where Richard was.

"Richard. Can I have a moment of your time? Out near the pool?"

His voice must have been far more serious than usual, because Richard immediately looked scared and stood up. "What's wrong, Jared?"

Jared shook his head. "We should go to the pool."

Gilfoyle gave them a strange look as they left, but at least Richard was coming.

 

Richard sat down on a pool chair and looked up at Jared curiously.

"So. What did you need?"

All of his confidence having been used to get Richard out here, Jared hesitated. "I talked to Dinesh earlier."

Richard looked very confused, but also a little bit relieved. "Jared, I thought Pied Piper was going broke or something. I've never seen you look so...serious before. It was kind of terrifying."

Secretly pleased that anyone could ever see him as threatening, Jared decided to come at the problem from another angle. "You said yesterday that you were bisexual."

"Maybe." Richard corrected.

"Maybe." Jared added.

Richard sighed. "Look, I...I slept with a guy before. And it was fine. I guess. I guess I didn't really sleep with him. We kissed a couple of times and he went to take my pants off, but I sorta jumped since I wasn't expecting it, and he said he didn't really want to have sex with a guy that was that nervous, so I said, 'hey, we can just go to sleep', so he rolled over and I laid awake all night and he left at like 5:30 and I pretended that I was asleep." He snuck a glance at Jared. "It was uncomfortable."

Jared nodded. "That was very insensitive of him."

Richard fidgeted. "Jared, did you ask me out here just to question my sexuality, or..."

Jared shook his head quickly. "No, Richard, I would never question anyone's identity! I'm only asking because it's relevant to the conversation."

"Oh. Okay." Richard said, even though Jared was fairly sure he didn't understand at all. "So, what about you then?"

"My sexuality? I'm gay, Richard, I thought we talked about this yesterday..."

"No, no, I know! I'm just asking, you know, how you figured it out and everything."

Jared frowned. "I guess I just always knew. I'm sorry I can't be of more help."

Richard smiled at him. If he'd been a more tactile person, he would have patted Jared on the shoulder, but Jared understood why he refrained. He felt comforted anyway.

"Not everything you do has to be for someone else, you know."

Jared did know that, but he'd never really internalized the idea. "Helping people helps me, too, I guess. I feel better about myself if I help others feel better."

Richard smiled again. This one was even warmer. It was nice, being looked at like this. "You're great, Jared. You really are."

Jared smiled back. "So, about why I brought you out here..."

"Do you want to go out with me?" Richard interrupted. "On a date, I mean. I know we work together and all, and there's probably some rules against this somewhere in the company code, maybe in the same section as the harassment policy, but I figure if anyone could change the coworker dating policy, it would be you. If you want to, I mean." He cleared his throat. "Do you? Want to?"

Jared was stunned. He was shocked into silence, but he knew he had the biggest grin on his face. His heart was soaring with joy. His ears were ringing. The moment felt unreal with the amount of happiness that was overwhelming him at the moment. He couldn't speak, but he nodded rapidly. He felt his eyes beginning to water.

Richard looked at him nervously and scuffed his toe on the ground. "Is that a yes? I thought that was a yes but you're also crying? Is that a good crying?

"Yes!" Jared managed to breathe out, not even caring that it was watery. "Yes, yes. Yes."

Jared couldn't say anything but yes for another minute or too, and he did actually feel some tears fall. When they heard sniggering from the other side of the fence, Richard yelled out:

"Gilfoyle, I know you're over there! Leave us alone."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somebody write a fic where Jared teaches Dinesh the PC ways of talking about LGBT issues. 
> 
> Sidenote, there's only a chapter and an epilogue left to go!


	9. Tuesday

_Gilfoyle had decided to get a dwarf hamster quite suddenly one day. He started out by doing several hours of research. It was excruiating listening to him, because he was being nice for once, and Dinesh felt bad every time he ignored Gilfoyle comparing one type of hamster cage against another and saying "which species do you think I should get, Dinesh?". They were being friendly, and Dinesh could work on his Tinder profile with little judgment while Gilfoyle was distracted_

_He did, of course, come along to the pet store. Only insane people turned down trips to the pet store. Plus, Gilfoyle was actually getting something, which made the trip doubly exciting._

_They made a loop around the entire store before they actually started looking at the hamsters. Dinesh liked fish. They were easy pets, didn't require much care, and were calming to watch. He watched Gilfoyle get really excited about some of the cat furniture, and reminded himself to make sure Erlich remembered the "no pets in the incubator" policy. The fact that Gilfoyle was hiding a hamster away in his room was already pushing how much Erlich wouldn't notice. They really didn't need a cat walking across their keyboards when they were trying to work. The company was unproductive enough._

_Finally, they got to the hamster cages (with a quick detour to look at the rats and mice. Dinesh found their naked tails kind of unsettling). Gilfoyle got a store attendant to come over so they could actually take some hamsters out. He and Dinesh picked up a few different hamsters before Dinesh reached his hand into the cage at the end. The hamster took one look at Dinesh's finger and tried to bite it._

_Gilfoyle smiled. "I'll take that one."_

Dinesh didn't bother with knocking this time. They were beyond that (or, at least, they'd have to be after this conversation). As Gilfoyle's door swung open, Dinesh remembered himself enough to avert his eyes from the bed in case Gilfoyle wasn't wearing pants.

Thankfully, his friend was fully clothed, sitting cross-legged on his bed with a book. Dinesh glanced at it and noticed it was the _Teach Yourself Urdu_ book he'd seen the other day. He raised an eyebrow, looking up at Gilfoyle.

"You're learning Urdu?" Dinesh asked.

_"Yes."_ Gilfoyle said, in Urdu, and his pronounciation was _terrible_ , but Dinesh couldn't help the grin that spread over his face.

_"Is it for me?"_ He said, saying the words slowly and clearly so Gilfoyle could understand.

Gilfoyle nodded and said _"Yes"_ again. Dinesh revelled in how happy a single word could make him before he came to his senses.

"So. I talked to Carla."

They were never ones for beating around the bush. Gilfoyle had once had a girl break up with him because he skipped straight from the "how was last night" conversation to the "can you get me a bowl of cereal while I lie on the couch" conversation with no real segue, and she found the rapid transition kind of rude. Dinesh had cracked a joke about her not being very fast. Gilfoyle had just rolled his eyes, like he always did when girls broke up with him for stupid reasons.

Gilfoyle nodded slowly, suddenly becoming quiet. "I know. She texted me right after you left."

"Of course she did." Fucking Carla. Dinesh studied Gilfoyle for a minute, trying to read if he was angry or not, but he just looked nervous and unsure.

"You're not very good at sneaking around, you know." Gilfoyle informed him. "Good thing you never got a girlfriend, no way you could pull anything behind her back."

Dinesh shook his head and tried to focus on Gilfoyle to show him that he wanted a serious conversation. "She told me some of the things you've said about me."

Gilfoyle suddenly looked terrified. "Wait, like word for word? Because, if so, I just have to say, she doesn't have the best memory and could totally be embellishing..."

Now Dinesh was interested. He tried to play around with Gilfoyle a bit. "Well, she did say some pretty embarassing stuff..."

Gilfoyle blanched. "Look, your hands aren't all that interesting to watch, okay? Sorry I made you uncomfortable." He looked off to the side wall, glaring at the guys who looked like they were in Kiss.

Dinesh clenched and unclenched his fingers, suddenly self-concious, but not in a bad way. It was kind of nice to get a compliment out of Gilfoyle, as indirect as it was.

"Look, man. We should talk." Dinesh said suddenly.

Gilfoyle looked confused as to why Dinesh hadn't yet run off screaming. "About what?"

"Us. The stuff you said to Carla. I think it should be the kind of stuff you tell me, too, huh?" Dinesh gestured to the bed, and Gilfoyle nodded. He took a seat, keeping about a foot between himself and Gilfoyle.

Gilfoyle snorted. "There's some stuff you really shouldn't tell the guy you're crushing on."

Dinesh laughed at that as well. "Yeah, I guess you probably shouldn't. Plus, it's not like you were ever really a sharing sort of person anyway, huh?"

Gilfoyle nodded. Dinesh looked down at his shoes, noting that he tracked dirt into Gilfoyle's room, and felt bad until he spotted a banana peel just laying on the floor.

"Dude, seriously?" He asked, indicating the offending peel with his foot.

Gilfoyle shrugged, looking completely unapologetic. "The trash can was far. And it's not like I invited you in here."

Dinesh noted that the trash can was, at most, a foot away from where the peel had landed. At least the second part of that statement was true.

"So, you're kind of gay, right?" Dinesh asked.

"Jared seems to think I'm pansexual." Gilfoyle said. "I saw him and Richard practically making out in the backyard yesterday."

That was confusing. "They were...physical?"

Gilfoyle shook his head. "No, their weird, emotional version of making out where Jared cries and Richard tries to pretend he's not insanely uncomfortable."

"Heh. So when's the wedding?"

"Two weeks, knowing them."

Dinesh brought the conversation back to the main topic, glad that Gilfoyle was entertaining little side tangents. It made this whole thing easier and less weird if they could go back to their gossipy, asshole selves every time the conversation got too overwhelming. "How long have you known you liked guys?"

Gilfoyle shrugged again. "There was never really a discovery for me. I never ruled it out as a possibility, and when I got around to trying it out, I wasn't disappointed, so I stuck with it. Not often, obviously, but a couple of times."

Dinesh sighed and looked up at the ceiling. "It's still so strange for me that you got to experiment like that. You could try out all sorts of preferences and sexualities, and you never had any sort of expectations or limits placed on you."

"Well, technically I had expectations when I lived at home." Gilfoyle said. "But after I got kicked out, I was free to explore. But I also had to worry about stuff like food and shelter when I was 15 years old, so it wasn't all peachy."

Dinesh looked over at him in surprise, the first time they'd really looked at each other since he came in. "You were kicked out?" Gilfoyle only answered with a shrug, so Dinesh kept on prying. "Was it because of the gay thing?"

Gilfoyle winced a bit at the use of the word 'gay', and Dinesh tried to remind himself to stop using it while talking to him. "No, that started after I left."

"What was it then?"

"She thought I was being disrespectful and unappreciative."

Dinesh blinked. He couldn't imagine being kicked out for that. He couldn't even imagine his own parents cutting him off now, and that was over a far bigger problem than what Gilfoyle was describing. "Isn't that, like, a teenager right of passage?"

Gilfoyle shook his head. "I didn't stop being rude, even after she asked me to. Eventually she gave me the choice between staying with no electronics, or taking my computer with me. I did the second. It was really my fault."

"No." Dinesh resisted the urge to put a hand on Gilfoyle's knee, thinking that was a little too weird for the situation (and their relationship, which had never been super physical before). "No, it realy wasn't." It was important that Gilfoyle understood that, but that was a battle for another day. Dinesh took a deep breath, readying himself. There was no going back after this one. "So, I've been trying to figure out if I'm..." Dinesh stopped himself just in time, "If I like guys, too."

Gilfoyle raised an eyebrow.

"Well?" Dinesh demanded. "Are you going to say anything?"

Suddenly, Gilfoyle was glaring at him angrily. "You don't need to rub it in or anything."

Dinesh stood up, confused. "What are you talking about?"

"It's already embarrassing enough," Gilfoyle explained while rolling his eyes, "liking some guy who can't like you back. But you don't have to be a dick about it."

"I..." Dinesh struggled, trying to find the right words to make Gilfoyle understand. "That's not what I'm doing. Look, I'm trying to be honest with you here, ok?" Dinesh let the words hang for a moment before he started pacing. "Do you remember the whole 'Code Gay' thing?"

Gilfoyle snorted, even though he clearly was trying not to. "Yeah, of course I do."

Dinesh nodded. "So, you remember how I reacted?"

Gilfoyle looked up at him. "I kind of assumed you were drinking out of disgust of...me, I guess."

Dinesh shook his head, coming to a stop. "I think I didn't want to admit something to myself. Something I'm trying to admit to you now, if you'd just shut up for a minute and let me. Look, Gilfoyle, I like guys. Maybe. Whatever, who cares. I like you."

Describing Gilfoyle's face as "surprised" would be like describing Erlich as "offensive". Gilfoyle was astonished. You could only really tell if you knew him as well as Dinesh did. He was smiling, small and unsure.

"How did you figure it out?" He finally asked.

"That is a long story that I will tell you another time. But, seriously, I think I owe Jared." Dinesh was thinking out loud, but the guy really had done quite a lot for them over the past week, and probably deserved a bird watching vacation. Or whatever he liked to do in his free time.

"Aww." Gilfoyle said in a semi-mocking tone. It was nothing compared to his usual scorn, which betrayed how happy he still was. "He went to Jared."

Dinesh punched him on the shoulder. "Shut up."

They sat, staring at each other for a moment.

"So...do you believe me now?" Dinesh asked.

Gilfoyle nodded. "Unless Erlich breaks in here with a camera and starts yelling about how I've been Punk'd."

"Nah, don't worry, I think he and Jian Yang are out throwing stuff at girls on bikes or something."

"What the fuck does that mean?"

Dinesh shrugged. "I wasn't going to ask him."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I write an entire fic to make a "he went to Jared" joke? Maybe.


	10. Epilogue - Wednesday

Dinesh woke up, sitting up and rubbing his eyes before he realized that he wasn't in his room. Which was impossible. The last time he'd slept somewhere besides his own room was when he fell asleep at his cousins house after he tried to drink enough shots to ask this pretty recruiter out (which he had a vague recollection of himself actually doing, as well as a stronger recollection of her laughing in his face).

He tried not to panic when he heard what was unmistakably Gilfoyle groaning beside him. He looked down. His best friend was lying underneath the same sheets that were currently wrapped around Dinesh's own waist. And Gilfoyle was shirtless.

Dinesh took a deep breath. "Wait a second. Did we..."

Gilfoyle shook his head sleepily. "Nope. I think you might have if I had asked, though." He looked up at Dinesh, wearing a smug smile. "I definitely believe you now about liking me, by the way. You're pretty disgusting about it, too."

Dinesh shook the insult off. "Why didn't you ask? I know how much you like that stuff." He felt a pang of hurt. Maybe he wasn't really hot enough for Gilfoyle. Maybe them dating would only hold him back. Maybe...

Gilfoyle shrugged as he turned over, lying on his back. "I didn't ask because I wanted there to be a second date."

"Oh." Dinesh said. "Do you really think I'm that desperate to fuck someone?"

"Well, there's that. And that's how it usually goes. I have sex with someone, and then they leave. No need for second dates. Or really dating at all."

Dinesh looked down at Gilfoyle and shoved him fondly. "Dude. There will be a second date."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's all, folks! Thanks so much to everyone who commented or left kudos. You guys are all amazing, and I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it.

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk to me on [tumblr](http://conversationslikeminefields.tumblr.com/).


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